Hey Reader - Client calls us. ROAS is down. Nobody knows why. Welcome to subscription apps. It's fun here. Here's the thing. You only see trials. That's it. That's what Meta shows you. Whether those trials become paying customers? That data lives in some other system. Shows up days later. Sometimes weeks. So when ROAS tanks, you're staring at a dashboard that's basically shrugging at you. 🤷🏻♂️ But wait. It gets even more fun. Even when that conversion data finally rolls in, you can't just say...
12 days ago • 2 min read
Hey Reader - I've scaled multiple products to $100k/day in ad spend. You know what's funny? All that stuff everyone argues about on Twitter? All those LinkedIn bro 'hacks'? Cost caps vs bid caps. CBO settings. The latest targeting hack. Nobody at $100k/day is having those conversations. They're playing a completely different game. Here's what that game actually looks like. 1. They're always testing the next channel before they need it. Meta and Google are great until they're not. Algorithm...
18 days ago • 1 min read
Hey Reader - 2-year-olds don’t care about 0.2x ROAS. And unfortunately, 0.2x ROAS doesn’t care about 2-year-olds either. Last Saturday morning, my kid had just woken up. Still in bed. Eyes barely open. But he already knew. Saturday morning meant adventure time with Papa. “OUT,” he said. He wasn’t asking. He was ordering me. I was on my laptop. The screen glowed in the quiet room. 0.2x ROAS. Account bleeding. Ads that showed early promise had died. Nothing we tested had staying power. We’d...
26 days ago • 2 min read
Hey Reader - Most people think AI ads equal slop(and think it results in terrible performance). Weird hands. Dead eyes. Robotic voice. That uncanny valley feeling. And honestly? They’re not wrong. Most AI ads are garbage. …and perform terribly. But we just scaled one to $10k/day profitably. Not the first time we’ve done this. No UGC shoot. No creator fees. AI-generated creative. And it’s printing. So what gives? Here’s where I’m going to get a little philosophical on you. Bear with me. The...
about 1 month ago • 2 min read
Hey Reader — Ever built the world’s most profitable store on top of a volcano? That’s what we did. Didn’t know it at the time. Picture this. Day three of a $10k/day spend streak. Dashboard’s on fire. And not the good kind. CPAs are spiking. ROAS is cratering. The client’s blowing up our Slack. I'm staring at the screen like… WHAT IS HAPPENING. WTF WTF WTF is this. 24 hours earlier, everything was beautiful. 48 hours earlier, we were high-fiving. Now we’re panic-pulling budgets back to...
2 months ago • 2 min read
Hey Reader Had a call with a subscription app’s growth team recently. Preparing for the Q5 CPM crash. ..the big spike in January. New Year New You etc. They wanted to go big. They were ready to scale. But they weren't feeling it. Creative tests werent translating to performance. Every week, they were trying to come up with completely new ad concepts. New hooks. New angles. New everything. 20 different ideas. 20 directions. And nothing was landing. Performance was flat. CPAs were climbing....
2 months ago • 1 min read
Hey Reader - Many moons ago, I read this book about Miyamoto Musashi. Legendary Japanese swordsman. In it, two swordsmen travel to challenge an old master named Yagyu Sekishusai. This dude was the real deal. The Shogun's weapons instructor. But he doesn't accept challenges anymore. ‘cos he's retired now - and aint got time for the young ‘uns. So instead of fighting, he sends each of them a single cut peony flower. One swordsman, a guy named Yoshioka, is insulted. He wanted a duel. Not a...
2 months ago • 1 min read
Hey Reader True story. A fitness brand told me last week they're thinking of waiting until January to start testing. And I just... paused. I get it. January is the promised land, right? Everyone's motivated. Credit cards are out. "New Year New Me" is in full effect. But that's exactly the problem. January is GO TIME. The buyers are ready. The intent is through the roof. People are actively looking for what you sell. And if you're still "testing" during all that? You're warming up while...
3 months ago • 1 min read
Hey Reader ICYMI: Here is the latest-and-greatest from our socials This underrated habit matters more than creative volume The underrated creative skill: knowing when an idea is truly new This framework makes creative iterations that actually teach you somethingHow to ensure creative iteration doesn’t stop before a breakthrough The surprising reason good creative concepts fail(and how to revive them) The 70/30 creative testing rule that helped them scale to hundreds of ads per monthWhy your...
3 months ago • 1 min read