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

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.

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.

$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.

The real reason brands can't scale past $50k/day on Meta isn't what they think.

Most teams assume it's about:

> Testing more creatives
> Restructuring campaigns
> Switching between CBO and ABO
> Hiring a "better" media buyer

But when we run the diagnostic, the Meta account is rarely the issue.

Here's what we actually find:

Their CAC targets were set 18 months ago based on gut feel, not payback modelling. 

They're measuring blended ROAS when they should be isolating new customer acquisition costs. 

And they have no idea what their actual cash-to-cash cycle looks like - so they pull back on spend during high-CAC periods that would've been profitable if they'd just waited 60 days.

Their creative team is producing 5 new ads per week. Sounds decent - until you realise it's the same UGC format with slightly different hooks. 

There's nothing built for Reels. Nothing educational. Nothing high-production. 

The "diversity" is surface-level, and Meta's already exhausted the audience that responds to that singular approach.

They're sending all traffic - cold, warm, problem-aware, solution-aware - to the same generic product page. 

The ad promises a specific outcome, but the landing experience is a bland product description and an "Add to Cart" button. 

There's no bridge between intent and conversion, and they're bleeding 30-40% of their traffic because of it.

Their product catalogue hasn't evolved in two years. Customer support has hundreds of requests for specific variations, bundles, or adjacent products - but none of that intelligence is making it back to the product team. 

So creative and media are doing all the heavy lifting to compensate for gaps in the actual offering.

Their AOV strategy is "hope people buy two." No structured bundles based on real purchase behaviour. 

No post-purchase upsells. No subscription option, even though 40% of customers reorder within 90 days. 

They're leaving thousands per day on the table - money that could be funding higher CACs and more aggressive acquisition.

The breakthrough usually comes when they stop asking:

"How do we optimise the account?"

And start asking:

"What needs to be true about our business for this account to scale?"

Because Meta doesn't care about your tactics.

It cares whether your business can absorb expensive traffic, convert it efficiently, and monetise it profitably.

That's not a campaign structure problem.

That's a business architecture problem.

And no amount of creative testing will fix it.

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.

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.

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.

probably not the best ghostwriter, but every client smiled. Copy that works -​> reviews below. (soon to be dad, love our doggo, and love fishing)

If posting on LinkedIn feels like work… it’s because it is.

Most founders post at night, second-guess in the morning, and delete by noon.
Then wonder why their pipeline’s cold.

If that’s you, you’re not alone.
But you also don’t have to stay stuck.

👋 I’m Laszlo.
I ghostwrite for founders & CEOs who want credibility and calls, without faking it or burning out.

Here’s what I do:
→ I write like you actually sound
→ I make your ideas land in the right inbox
→ I give you back your weekends

10+ leads in 60 days for multiple clients.
One client booked a lead in 10 days.
I’ve written over 1,300+ posts across 20+ industries.
Grew my own following to 6,800+ without ads.
And every word is handcrafted, not AI-churned.

But forget the numbers for a sec.

Here’s what they really say:

“He captured my voice better than I could.”
“It felt like I had a partner, not a ghostwriter.”
“I actually enjoy LinkedIn again.”

Full testimonials in the Featured section.

If you:
– Want to buy back 3–6 hours weekly
– Want to stop sounding smart and start sounding like yourself
– Believe content should create calls, not crickets

DM “Let’s go.”

No theatre. No fluff. 
Just posts that sound like you and sell like hell.

Laszlo Konkoly

Most people don’t paint their house.
Most people don’t cut their own hair.
Most people don’t design their own house.

But suddenly, everyone’s a writer,
Because AI is here.

They don’t study clarity.
They don’t structure ideas.
They don’t think about audience.

They just prompt… and post.

And then wonder why it doesn’t land.

My wife got promoted at 5 months pregnant, 
But...
Every time I talk about Norway’s work culture, someone says:

“That’s not the real world.”
But maybe that’s the problem.

Because in the “real world” I grew up in, here’s what was normal:
→ Pregnant women fired for being pregnant.
→ Workers punished for caring for sick parents.
→ Managers acting friendly Monday, firing you Friday.

I’ve lived in 4 countries.
Seen this pattern play out again and again.

So when we moved to Norway and my wife got promoted while pregnant
I didn’t know what to do with that.

You read that right.

Five months in.
Told her company she’s expecting.

They gave her more responsibility, not less.

Knowing full well she’ll be on leave for a full year.

And they still said: “She’s the best person for the job.”

Here’s where people usually jump in:
“Sure, but people abuse systems like that.”
Or: “That kind of trust isn’t scalable.”

Maybe. Maybe not.

But I’ve seen what fear-based work cultures create.

I’ve lived inside them.

And if the alternative is a country where
→ doctors listen
→ managers lead with respect
→ and nobody acts like sick leave is a crime?

I’ll take that version of “unreal” every damn time.

This isn’t a fairy tale.

It’s a warning:
If fairness feels unrealistic to you,
maybe it’s not the country that’s broken.

Maybe it’s what you’ve gotten used to.

No alternative text description for this image

Most founders don’t quit LinkedIn,
They just quietly avoid it.
It sits there like an open browser tab you never close.

Always running. Always pulling a little energy

Posting late at night,
Second-guessing in the morning,
Deleting by lunch.

Not because they’re lazy.

Because running a company already fills your head with enough tabs.

I see this pattern constantly.
Founders say they want “strategy help.”

What they really want is to stop carrying LinkedIn around
like a half-packed backpack they never put down.

So they try to handle it themselves:
- AI drafts
- Templates
- Half-written thoughts squeezed between meetings

It works… kind of...
Likes come in,
Maybe a DM,
But the weight stays.

And here’s the quiet truth most people miss:

If LinkedIn is draining you instead of paying you back,
it’s not a platform problem,
It’s an ownership problem.

You don’t need more discipline.
You need space back.

I’ve got 2 spots open for founders who want to stay visible
without sacrificing evenings, weekends, or sanity.

If you don’t want to think about LinkedIn tonight,
DM me EVENINGS.

If not, close the laptop.
Sunday night is expensive too.

People follow random accounts.
People accept every connection.
People send connections to every 3rd person.

And suddenly, everyone complains about their feed,
Like it's someone else's fault.

They don't curate.
They don't unfollow.
They don't take responsibility.

They just scroll… and complain.

And they wonder why LinkedIn is not fun and stressful.

I’ll probably lose a few followers for saying this. Even get a block or 2.
My confession below may save me. But...
Most LinkedIn “networking” is as real as plastic fruit on a dining table.

Let’s call out the 2 greatest fakes:

Move #1: The Like-Comment Waltz

You hit like. Drop a comment.
They return the favor.
Then you send a connection request…

And suddenly it’s ghost town.
You thought you’d unlocked a business conversation.

They just wanted another +1 on their profile, ike collecting fridge magnets at a tourist shop.

Move #2: The Polite Ping-Pong

You praise their banner. Their dog.
Their third cousin’s podcast.
Weeks of chat that’s all foreplay, no action.

Everyone knows what’s coming. Both parties tiptoe around the pitch.
One of you ghosts.

Or you send The Message (generic pitch) and it dies like a sock in the laundry.

My confession?

I do like and comment before connecting.
Sure, it gets me 80% acceptance.

But my opener is always honest:
“Here’s what I do. Can this help you? Yes or no?”

Because I’d rather get a straight “no” in 10 seconds
than spend three weeks ballroom dancing around nothing.

Ask yourself:
How many polite convos died off because nobody wanted what you offered?
How much time vanished trying to “build rapport” with someone just being polite?

Truth is, both sides lose.

I’m done with the performance.
If you’re selling, say it.

If you’re not interested, say that too.

Respect isn’t in the dance, t’s in the honesty.

So, am I out of line here, or just saying what we’re all thinking?

Relaxed observation:

If you’re on LinkedIn all the time, you’re probably one of these:

– not actually working
- liar: "I only spend 1 hour daily here."
– wildly overworked
– sitting on way too much free time
– or… yeah, all of the above

OR
you’re smart enough to have someone else handle it for you.
No shame in that.

Some people build products.
Some people build teams.

Some people build visibility without thinking about it twice.
(That last one usually has a ghostwriter.)

And not the “competent” kind.

The kind that makes other LinkedIn people argue in the comments about whether you’re brilliant… or annoying… or both.

Anyway.
Back to work 😌

Prospect: booked a call last Thursday 4 PM. 
No show. He ghosted me.
Not a word before after.

Me: booked a call for Friday
I ghosted him. Didnt say a word.

Prospect: lets call him Derek.
So, Derek is pissed, 

He sent me a mail:
“How the fu*k I dare to waste his time? 
Who Am I?

Me: politely; score for me.
Match is tied: 1:1

Me: (email to him) now we are even, shall we kick the penalties; continue wasting each other’s time or we do proper overtime see if we vibe after all? (try the chat again) 

(We do overtime next week, 🤞, Derek is funny actually)

Moral of the story: have fun, you might end to win also with it

When I started on LinkedIn, I didn’t make small mistakes.
I made the kind that felt productive
and quietly cost me money.

The first one was saying yes to everyone.
Every request. Every “great profile!” DM.

My network grew fast… and became useless.
It looked impressive.
It did nothing.

Then there was my favorite excuse:
“I don’t want to be pushy.”
So I didn’t DM people.

Didn’t follow up. Didn’t turn interest into conversations.
I told myself I was being professional.

What I was really being was invisible.

The worst mistake?
Posting without knowing why I was posting.

Random thoughts.
Safe takes.
Inconsistent bursts of motivation.

People engaged. Nobody bought. And I blamed the platform.

Here’s the uncomfortable truth founders hate:

LinkedIn doesn’t reward effort.
It rewards intent.

Who you connect with.
Who you talk to.

What story your posts repeat.

When I fixed those 3 things,
LinkedIn stopped being “content” and started being leverage.

Not overnight.
But predictably.

If your presence looks busy but your pipeline feels quiet,
it’s not bad luck.

It’s usually one of these three.
Which one are you pretending isn’t the issue?

12 years ago, I was promoted before I could explain myself properly.
Turns out, how I sounded wasn’t the deciding factor.

I was an immigrant.

In 2013, my Norwegian had a 200-word limit:
In meetings, I’d start a sentence… then stop…
...searching for the right word, like I was digging through my pockets for my keys.

You know that moment:
Everyone’s watching, 
You feel the heat, 
You keep going anyway.

The people who sounded best in meetings
weren’t the ones others went to when things got tight.

When something broke or plans fell apart,
nobody asked who could explain it best.
They watched who moved first.

Since then, I’ve seen this play out in teams, leadership, and business.

When things go wrong, who people really follow?

New client,
Fresh energy.

Way less friction than usual.
She brings ideas and thinks ahead.

Treats this like a system, not a lottery ticket.
Love how fast things move when that clicks.

Sunday momentum!
Finally got a creative approach.

graphical user interface, text, application, chat or text message

A lot of people don’t niche down.
A lot of people stay broad on purpose.
A lot of people are afraid to choose.

I stayed broad for a year. (didnt niche down either)

Not because I was lazy.
Not because I lacked ambition.
Because “niching down” sounded like a trap and boring.

Everyone kept saying:
“Just niche down.” “It’ll be easier.”

I couldn't comprehend: “It’ll be easier.” 
(nobody could explain it properly)

So I wrote for my ICP... 
But for 30+ niche.

Safe ideas.
Generic writing problems.
Nothing you could argue with.
And LinkedIn did exactly what I deserved:

Posts were kept flopping the whole year in '25.

Because when your content doesn’t signal who it’s for,
the algorithm treats it like an airport departure board with no destinations.

Plenty of flights.
Nowhere specific to go.
I even heard it said out loud on a live roast:
“You can’t niche down too much here. There are plenty of people.”
I nodded. (Luke Matthews said it)

I ignored it...., huge mistake, cost me a year.

When I finally committed to one lane, something boring, but... 
important happened:
- my feed got quieter
- my conversations got sharper
- my posts stopped floating and started landing

Turns out a niche isn’t a cage and its not boring either.
It’s a signal.

So here’s the uncomfortable question:

Are you staying broad because it’s strategic
 or because you’re avoiding commitment?

PS: The lightbulb moment happened end of last year, when 2 of my retainer client grew faster than me, and everything is easier with their profile... I realized whats wrong with my own... I smile at it now. Lesson learned.

“Do I really need to post that often?”
“And will it even make a difference?”

Most people on LinkedIn don’t post.
They watch, they lurk. They “mean to someday.”
And that’s the whole point.

If only ~1% post weekly, then “joining the 1%” isn’t about talent.

It’s about showing up.
The bar is low.
Like… embarrassingly low.

Step 1: Post.
That alone separates you.

Step 2: 
Say something clearly.

Because once you’re already posting, the fastest way to stand out is simple:

Great social copywriting.
Not “write like Shakespeare.”
Write like a human who has a point.

One small tweak that changes everything:
Don’t start with what you did.

Start with what they’re thinking.
Bad: “Here’s a tip about content.”
Good: “Why do smart founders still get ignored on LinkedIn?”

Same topic.
Different gravity.

Show up.
Then make it easy to read.

That’s the game.

If you want more stuff like this, follow me on LinkedIn.

Most founders I talk to don’t suffer from a lack of ideas. The opposite.
They tend to arrive with their heads full, speaking in long sentences, pulling from years of experience, trying to say... 
everything they know before the moment escapes them.

I can almost hear the thinking while they write. 

One post becomes a place to teach, to position, to vent, to sell, and to quietly prove they’re competent enough to be taken seriously. 

All of it sincere. All of it human. All of it happening at once.

The problem isn’t bad content. 

It’s content doing too many jobs in too small a space, which is how honest thoughts start to read like mumbling. 

The posts still get likes, usually polite ones, mostly from people who already understand the backstory.

That’s why “just be yourself” only gets you so far. 
Authenticity without shape doesn’t travel well. It stays close to home.

Founders don’t need to become writers. They need help framing what they already know, so one idea reaches one reader and does one clear thing.

That doesn’t kill the voice. 
It finally lets it be heard.

And without that help, people don’t disappear because they’re wrong. 

They disappear because they were unclear.

Most “good” LinkedIn posts die quietly.
Not because they’re bad,
Because they’re predictable.

You open the app.
Your brain already knows what’s coming.
Another “3 lessons.”

Another calm opinion.
Another post that feels… fine.

And fine is invisible.

The posts that travel don’t do it because the algorithm “liked them.”

They do it because something felt off, in a good way.

A line that made you pause.
A sentence that didn’t resolve immediately.
A thought that arrived half a second late and stuck.

That’s not luck.
That’s surprise.

Your brain scrolls on autopilot until something breaks the pattern.

Like hearing your name in a crowded room.

Like a microwave stopping at 00:01 and forcing you to look.

Most people try to be clear first.
But clarity only matters after attention.

Predictable posts are easy to understand.
They’re also easy to forget.

If your content feels “safe,” it’s probably already dead.

Honest question:
What’s one thought you don’t post
because it might sound a little weird out loud?

See you in the comments.

New CEO of Ryanair soon…

…this happened after Michael O’Leary rejected Starlink WiFi for Ryanair and had a public spat with Elon

graphical user interface, text, application

Most founders ask for frameworks.
Most founders ask for good hooks.
Most founders ask for “value.”

Before I write anything, I ask for something else:

A moment.
Something that actually happened.

- a decision, 
- a mistake, 
- a thought you didn’t say out loud.

Because if it moved you, it will stop someone else.

Then a belief.
Not the lesson you’d put on a slide.

The thing you now believe because you lived it.

And finally, a constraint,

Because unlimited space creates noise.
And tight limits force the truth to surface.

Most content fails because it starts with advice.

Authority doesn’t. Authority starts with experience.

If you can’t name the moment,
or the belief,
or where to stop:

You don’t need better writing.
You need sharper thinking.

That’s the real work.

About 8% of the year is already gone.
January’s almost over, and something funny keeps happening to me…

This month alone, I’ve had 12 people try to sell me something in DMs.
Smart offers. Decent positioning. 
Some even well-written.

I didn’t buy from a single one. 
Not because the offer was bad.

Because I didn’t trust them enough to even click their profile.

No consistent posting.
No visible thinking.
No trail of ideas, opinions, wins, or scars.

Nada.

In plain English:

If you’re not visible, you’re not credible.
And if you’re not credible, your deal dies before the first call.

From the buyer’s side, it feels like this:

If I can’t understand how you think in 10 seconds of scrolling, I move on.

Not out of arrogance.
Out of self-defense.

Consistency isn’t a content strategy.
It’s a trust signal.

And every week you stay quiet, someone louder and often less capable, becomes the default option in your market.

So here’s the uncomfortable question to sit with as January closes:

If a serious buyer checked your profile today,
would they see a leader worth betting on…
or someone who looks like they might disappear again next week?

That gap is where most deals are lost.

I don’t get why people are still shocked by AI comments on LinkedIn.
Like… what did you expect?
Only about 1% of people post here, right? So...

From that group, a massive chunk is already using AI to write the posts.
So, of course, the comments are AI too. Duh?!

This is the part everyone pretends not to see:
Most people don’t want to be active on LinkedIn.

They want the result of being active.
(if they smart, they hire a ghostwriter)

If they have money, they hire a VA....
And the VA has one job: comment as much as possible in 1–2 hours.

Not to think.
Not to read deeply.
Just to move fast.

If they don’t have a budget, they do it themselves. 
(God, they hurt so much for their credibility)

With bad prompts.
On bad days.
While half-paying attention.

That’s how you end up with:
“Great insights! Thanks for sharing 🚀” under a post that clearly wasn’t read.

I hate seeing AI comments, too.

Especially under my own posts.
So I block them.
Ignore them.
Move on.

But what really doesn’t add up?

People are complaining about AI comments...
while the feed is flooded with AI posts.

You can’t be surprised by fake engagement in a system built on fake activity.

If you want real conversations,
start with real thoughts.

Otherwise, this is exactly the feed we’re choosing to build.

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Your personality, Your thoughts, Your message.
(I only write…for You)

Founder

What if you could have a proven LinkedIn system that takes less than 50 minutes to set up—and continues working for you, even while you focus on your business?

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Ghostwriter & Copywriter

Part-time chameleon, full-time scriptwriter – I ghostwrite like I’ve lived a hundred lives. 
Capturing voices and bringing stories to life is what I do best.

Scriptwriter

Web Content Writer

probably not the best ghostwriter, but every client smiled. 
Copy that works -​> reviews below. 
(soon to be dad, love our doggo, and love fishing)

I keep thinking I’m behind.
That I still need to figure things out before I speak.

But that’s only true if I’m comparing myself to people ten steps ahead.

But what I forget is this:

There are people a few steps behind me,
who would love to know what already feels obvious to me.

The things you call “basic”
are often someone else’s missing piece.

Most people don’t stay invisible because they lack value.

They stay invisible because their value feels too familiar to trust.

Posting this as a reminder to myself.

taplio

The Battle

Toby W.

Laszlo Konkoly

Followers

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Performance ScoreToby W.'s LinkedIn Performance

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taplio

The Battle

Toby W.

Laszlo Konkoly

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);}Toby W.'s LinkedIn Performance

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