Salif S.

Direct Response Creative For eCommerce Brands | Clients Include Setu, eComm Scaling Secrets, True Classic, FitTrack, Laura Geller, Perk, Alpha Lion, Glow25, PetLab, KraveBeauty, and more...

Siba Consulting is a lean eCommerce agency that helps 7-9 figure brands scale their new customer acquisition through Meta and YouTube ads. 

Our partners include Omnilux, Laura Geller, True Classic, Obvi, FitTrack, Solawave, PetLab and more...

We specialise in end-to-end performance creative development, media buying and multi-funnel testing.

Check out our work -> https://www.sibaconsulting.com/

Book an intro call with me -> https://calendly.com/sibaconsulting/discoverycall

Founder

Founder of a boutique performance marketing and creative agency for high-growth eCommerce brands and info-products.

We specialise in direct response creative and landing page development.

Learn more here: sibaconsulting.com

Made these statics recently 

Which one will perform better? and why?

Salif S

Founder @ Siba Consulting | Lean creative agency for 7-9 figure DTC brands

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The only 6 AI tools you need to crush creative in 2026:

Gemini → Research & scripting 

Nano Banana → Image gen

ElevenLabs → Voiceovers

Veo/Sora → Video gen

Arcads → AI avatars

2 years ago, we excelled at short-form UGC

This year we became great at making AI ads and VSLs

I now look at some of the stuff my team makes and I’m super impressed at how we've evolved

If you work with a creative agency that only specializes in one thing

Eg “Podcast ads” or “UGC”

It’s going to be tough

I look at other agencies on this app and very few are as versatile as us

Some have used the same SOPs for years, same creators, and run the same playbook for every brand

That simply doesn't work

If you want to scale, you need a partner that can adapt to YOUR ad account

Someone that specializes in different creative styles, and can execute them all at a high level

“We scaled this clothing brand to 9 figures”

Great, but I sell weight loss supplement

Totally different creative game

This week I had a look at 3 accounts spending $20k+/day

I keep seeing the same patterns

First, brands copying other brands

Even big ones do this

There's nothing wrong with copying

But if you're going to copy something, at least make sure it’s proven

Throwing money at copied ideas without knowing their actual performance 

Is one of the worse thing you can do

A brand I know tested 300 ads last month

Their ad account is in the worst shape it’s been in months

Volume means nothing if you're just launching random ads

If your brand is spending $250k+/mo, this is the ideal creative playbook you should follow:

Everyone knows this, but only a few are actually executing it well

Step 1: Run 3-5 min UGC and VSLs to cold audiences

Target unaware, problem aware ppl (even solution aware, depending how big the market is)

Find winning cold traffic frameworks that you can replicate

Focus on cracking scalable angles and mechanisms on those frameworks and acquire new traffic and eyeballs

Step 2: At the same time, run a ton of raw, organic creatives to warm audiences

TT style ads to convert skeptics and existing customers

Creators speaking to the camera with the product, minimal editing, etc..

Opposite of the first step

All the 8-9 figure brands we work that are crushing do this

Our clients are spending $15M/month on Meta

Here are winning hook frameworks I'm seeing work across different accounts

Test them out 👇

THIS is what a winning ad looks like

$70k spent -> $400k in revenue, 60% lower CPA than account average

Market is US

Funny cause I remember exactly the talks my team had when planning this concept 

The picked the creator and wrote the script super carefully

And went through like 4 rounds of revisions internally before delivering it to the client

Focusing on quality wins

A killer script is nothing if the editing is dog shit

Video too fast? Confused viewers scroll away immediately

You need to make the video slow enough so viewers can follow the script and what you're showing them

(Unless you're deliberately trying to generate an 'information overload')

But it also needs to be fast enough so it doesn't get boring  

Attention spans are 3 seconds, lose momentum and you lose the viewer

Send this to your editors

Chris Nawrocki

Ecommerce Consultant | Director | CMO | CCO & Founder @ Heur

Co-founder of Heur - an award-winning DTC (direct-to-consumer) as a service ecommerce agency. We run your full DTC strategy, ecommerce store, digital marketing and retention. We become your expert ecommerce team on demand. Running some of the world's best B2Bs ecommerce stores for them.

A passionate and self-motivated hands-on, pure-play Ecommerce and digital marketing expert with 17+ years of advanced end-to-end working knowledge of international luxury and FMCG retail sectors. In-depth working relationships with brands, agencies and investors.

Previously worked for brands such as H&M, Lyle & Scott, Vivobarefoot, Drake's, Resident Home, Derek Rose, Jaded, The Ragged Priest, Duke & Dexter and Tangle Teezer. 

Actively working with clients as a CMO, COO, Director of Growth and Ned. Helping businesses rebuild from the ground up, bolster themselves for onward growth or prepare for an M&A. 

Covering all aspects of ecommerce, from marketplaces and brand development to ownership of the online presence, including full P&L ownership, advanced working knowledge of multichannel digital marketing, and full business growth dynamics. A strong understanding of all aspects of the operational fulfilment of an ecommerce business, from procurement through to design and final delivery. 

With specialist knowledge of driving growth strategies to deliver best-in-class profitable growth. Well-versed in ensuring communication flows seamlessly from stakeholder to owner/founder/board level. With a keen eye for tech and data-driven solutions, I thrive on the fast pace and continual production of new challenges, applying an unparalleled focus to meeting deadlines and driving projects to completion.

Director Of Ecommerce Strategy

End-to-end Ecommerce and marketing growth agency. Delivering managed Ecommerce and fractional growth support for growing brands.

Working with clients such as H&M, Union Coffee, Drakes and Jaded London.

If your ecommerce manager is project managing, they’re not growing your business... is this why you are standing still?

I see some of the best ecommerce managers spend their days chasing tickets, coordinating agencies, updating timelines and unblocking everyone else. They’re busy. Always responsive. Always in meetings.

And growth quietly plateaus.

That’s rarely a talent problem. It’s a structural problem.

When your ecommerce lead becomes the default project manager, strategic thinking is the first thing to go. There’s no time to step back and work on margin, customer behaviour, channel mix or the big bets that actually move the needle.

What tends to happen next:

- Lots of activity, little impact
- Reactive trading instead of planned growth
- Incremental optimisation dressed up as progress
- Accountability without real authority

Ecommerce managers shouldn’t be policing delivery. They should be owning outcomes.

The better setups protect thinking time, separate ops from commercial ownership, and reduce the amount of work that needs managing in the first place. 

This is why we started Heur - to put a battle-hardened structure in that allows for growth.

DTC As A Service | Ecommerce Consultant | Founder @ Heur

Leadership isn’t about filling gaps. It’s about unlocking strengths.

A lot of ecommerce leaders try to fix everything. They jump in, smooth over weaknesses, and quietly become the glue holding the team together.

NB: This was/is me - I'm always drag netting to find problems to take on...

It feels helpful. It usually becomes the constraint.

When leaders compensate for every gap, strong people stop owning their strengths... decisions bottleneck... progress slows. Everyone waits for the same person to step in.

Good ecommerce leadership is orchestration, not heroics. Leads are the conductors. 

The teams that scale well don’t chase balance in every role. They lean into what people are actually good at and design roles around outcomes, not tasks. 

Specialists go deep. Ownership is clear. Leaders step back.

(At this point, I feel very lucky to have one of the best senior management teams in ecommerce: Rob McKenzie, Harpreet C., Esme Seddon, Ben Phillips, Ben St. George and Chris Raven)

What I’d do to fix this? 

Map the strengths already in your team, remove the friction in their way, and stop fixing problems that aren’t yours to solve. And remember - Its a journey!

Reforecasting isn’t failure.

Clinging to a plan that no longer reflects reality is...

I see ecommerce teams treat the original forecast like a promise. Miss it, and the tone changes. Updates slow down. Language softens. Everyone quietly hopes next month will fix the gap.

Spoiler: It rarely does.

Demand shifts. CAC jumps. Stock lands late. Conversion moves for reasons no one predicted. When leaders pretend the numbers still hold, teams feel it immediately. Confidence drops. Decisions get cautious. Trust starts to thin.

Reforecasting, done properly, is a strength. It’s a reset based on facts, not hope.

In practice, good reforecasting means:

- Resetting revenue and spend based on real demand signals
- Protecting margin and cash, not just top-line optics
- Giving teams targets they can actually rally behind
- Explaining why the numbers changed, not just that they did

The worst thing you can give a team is a target you no longer believe in. People stop pushing because they know it’s fiction.

The strongest ecommerce teams reforecast calmly. Transparently. Without blame.

If the inputs are wrong, the KPIs don’t matter.

I see a lot of ecommerce teams hiding behind dashboards. Great charts. Clean reports. Weekly KPI reviews that feel productive.
And the numbers still don’t improve.

That’s because reporting doesn’t fix bad decisions. It just makes them easier to track. (Harpreet C. talked about this this week to the team - platforms condition us to look and value certain KPIs as it helps the platforms hit their goals, not our performance!)

This usually shows up when teams obsess over metrics but ignore the foundations behind them:

- Optimising ROAS while over-ordering stock
- Chasing conversion without fixing product clarity or pricing
- Celebrating AOV while returns quietly erode margin
- Tweaking channels when the strategy itself is misaligned

Dashboards create the illusion of control. They don’t create leverage.

The strongest ecommerce teams start with decisions, not metrics. They get clear on the commercial goal, fix stock, pricing and proposition first, then use KPIs to check whether those calls were right.

What would I do next? I'd fix the inputs before I optimise the numbers. Strategy beats scorekeeping every time!

Scaling ecommerce doesn’t typically fail loudly. It drifts.

In the early days, things are simple. The team is small, context is shared, and most decisions happen quickly because everyone broadly understands what matters and why. You don’t need to explain the trade-offs. They’re obvious.

Then the business grows. Paid becomes a team. CRM becomes a team. Trading, UX and ops all start pulling in slightly different directions. Everyone’s working hard, everyone’s competent, but when you ask what’s really driving growth, the answers aren’t as aligned as they used to be.

That’s usually where culture starts to slip. Not because people care less, but because clarity hasn’t scaled with the organisation.

I often see it showing up as:

- KPIs are being hit while margin, retention or stock health quietly deteriorate
- Channels optimising their own numbers rather than the overall outcome
- Ownership spread so thin that no one truly owns the result
- Decisions are slowing down as shared context disappears

Nothing looks broken on the surface. But the business feels noisier, heavier, and harder to steer than it should.

The teams that scale well don’t fix this by adding layers, processes or more meetings. They simplify. They align everyone around the same commercial truths, design KPIs that force collaboration, and make end-to-end ownership clear, even when it’s uncomfortable.

Where would I start? Fix the clarity first. Everything else gets easier after that.

Ecommerce involution is when you spend more to earn the same.

A deeper marketing strategy is how you break the loop.

A lot of ecommerce teams are stuck here. CAC creeps up, margins tighten, targets stay fixed. So budgets increase, campaigns multiply, and everyone optimises harder just to stand still.

That’s involution. More effort. Less leverage.

The usual response is incrementalism. Tweaking bids. Refreshing ads. Adding promotions. Useful in isolation, but collectively, it turns growth into a treadmill.
What actually changes the equation isn’t more spending. It’s clarity.

Brands that escape this loop tend to:

- Invest in brand and positioning so acquisition works harder
- Sharpen product stories so conversion and AOV improve
- Build loyalty deliberately to reduce paid dependency (Don't do a points program!)
- Stop asking the media to fix structural problems

This isn’t anti-performance marketing. It’s anti-magical thinking. If your growth only works when spending keeps rising, it’s fragile.

What would I do next?

When you’re spending more to earn the same, don’t default to optimising harder. Step back and deepen the strategy. That’s where leverage lives.

Control is comforting. Agility is more valuable.

Typically, when ecommerce growth slows, the default move is often to hire... Another role... Another layer... It can feel like progress...

Often, it’s just overhead.

Headcount is expensive. Salaries are the obvious part, but onboarding time, management load, and slower decision-making add up quickly. And once those costs are baked in, they’re hard to reverse.

The strongest commercial teams I see are more deliberate. They hire for long-term ownership, and they use external specialists when speed, depth, or flexibility matter more than control.

That usually means:

- Keeping the core team lean and commercially accountable
- Plugging in specialists for paid media, CRM, CRO or data
- Scaling capability up or down without rewriting the org chart
- Avoiding “just in case” hires that lock in fixed costs
- This isn’t anti-hiring. It’s pro-leverage.

What I’d do next: before opening a new role, ask what you really need. If it’s expertise, resource appropriately.

If you’re not willing to support a market, don’t enter it.

I see a lot of ecommerce brands talk about “testing” new markets. A translated site. A bit of paid spend. Then surprise when it doesn’t convert.

That’s not a test. It’s underinvestment.

International expansion isn’t a switch you flick. It’s closer to launching a new business. When brands cut corners, the symptoms are predictable. Low conversion. High returns. Messy CX. Paid media that looks inefficient.

The conclusion is usually “the market didn’t work.” More often, it was never properly supported.

The brands that do this well are honest before they launch:

- Can we deliver quickly, clearly, and handle returns locally?
- Do we understand local pricing, competitors and demand?
- Is CX ready for language, time zones and expectations?
- Do we have stock confidence, not hope?

Customers don’t know you’re experimenting. They just know whether the experience was good.

My thoughts? Pick one market, commit to supporting it end-to-end, and judge it like a real business. If you’re not ready to do that yet, wait.

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