Nicklas Larsen

$174k in 2 hours for this brand: 23.69x ROAS $2.83 CAC at a 9.57x NCROAS All-time 1D revenue record smashed Numbers verified by @triplewhale

Did anyone else max out their Claude Design limit in 2 hours? They knew what they were doing releasing after the Friday-session limit

Every agency says they're performance-driven. Every agency says they're partners. Every agency says they're different. Most are exactly the same. The reason their words feel hollow is because the agreement doesn't actually back it up - they get paid the same regardless of performance. Most run on retainer + % of spend, calling it performance while they are secretly trying to squeeze more brands into each pod. Would you call that performance-driven? Partnership? I'd call it underhanded and opportunistic. We've had partners join after their last agency literally spent more on ads than the company generated in revenue, and charged 15% adspend on top of a $15k/mo retainer for subpar management. No stipulations, no leeway - pay or get sued. AI will lower the cost of execution, which means everyone will have to switch to actual performance models. My prediction: they won't adapt - they'll pivot. SaaS, info products, courses. Same rent-seeking model, lower ticket.

@oliverwhudson 2026

Resharing this as my automation maxed out and I've had a lot of DM's from people who missed out! We’ve packaged what’s working, what’s dead, and what’s next for 2026 into one resource: 🚨 THE 2026 D2C PLAYBOOK: The New Rules of Meta, TikTok, AI & Performance Creative If your ads aren’t built for algorithmic feeds and personalised signals, you won’t scale. So what wins in 2026? Brands that blend machine logic with human insight. That means: - Creative systems built to match micro-behaviours - Messaging that adapts in real time - Ads that feel made for one, but scale to millions This is your roadmap to profitable, personalised growth across Meta, TikTok, Google, and AI workflows. - What’s working - What’s out - What’s next Get the playbook. Build for what’s coming. Want it? → Retweet this post → Comment “2026” and I’ll send it your way

Reminder: @triplewhale is still updating in real-time! (yes, even right now with Shopify admin is down)

Reminder for DTC brands: Build lifetime budget campaigns and flex ads 4 BFCM on Meta Flex Ads: Real-time rotation Faster optimization + utilization of Andromeda LTB: Fixed duration + budget Much faster deployment AND recognized budget updates (*if they manage through wknd)

It’s not about “finding a winning creative" - that’s the result It’s about building process and IP so creative wins are: - Repeatable (process) - Understandable (learnings) - Brand-owned (IP) Not just in a creative strategist’s head

@paulsaintecom We do this! Full-stack DTC Performance-management w/ P&L planning and ownership Anywhere from $15m to $150m Amazon-revenues, building DTCs from scratch Happy to have a chat after BFCM!

Looking for a DTC operator We're going to do $45 to $50M this year, 99% Amazon. We have our design & engineering team, so on some of our products we're actually innovating, and we've been running successful kickstarters : kickstarter.com/projects/klimt… We're getting strong ROAS on kickstarters so we believe we've got a good shot at making DTC work. If you have DTC experience, and are interested in partnering up on a profit-sharing model DM me

I’ve spoken to 100s of DTC founders and most of them want to exit some day People get lost in how to translate an exit goal —> into an actionable plan for the company Here’s how we do it: If your goal is to exit your brand for $50M then you need to reverse engineer what a $50M valuation looks like and build the roadmap to get there Say you're at $8M revenue with 15% EBITDA with a 5-year roadmap to exit: To sell your brand for $50M at a realistic 4-6X multiple you need $8-12M EBITDA (Roughly 40-60m at 20% EBITDA margins) The FIRST thing we build is a YoY P&L forecast: Yr 1: ~12M sales at ~15% EBITDA Yr 2: ~18M sales at ~16% EBITDA Yr 3: ~27M sales at ~18% EBITDA Yr 4: ~38M sales at ~19% EBITDA Yr 5: ~50M sales at ~20% EBITDA We map out everything down to daily targets across spend, efficiency and profitability. Now we have clear targets to go from $8M revenue —> $50M exit that we can align the entire organization around.

My 2 cents: Just looking at the creative I'd guess it serves mostly Product Aware/Most Aware audiences, so I would assume there's a higher % of either engaged audience or existing customers in those conversions compared to the rest of the account My guess would be a 40-40-20 split across New/Engaged/Existing with outsized CV on Engaged/Existing + a good collab always bangs 🔥

Why do you think this particular ad was the top performer from the Heretic Perfume x Nosferatu campaign? *created by the agency Milked Media

If you are a brand owner and want to sell at some point: There are 2 things to consider that impact your enterprise value outside of your EBITDA, category & revenue (that almost no-one talks about). 1: Team and key man risks 2: The process IP that your brand scales with Repeatable growth engine = compounding EBITDA and higher exit multiples

@mikefutia Ads

This AI Agent generates 1000s of winning static ads automatically. → Auto-generates 100+ unique image variations → AI writes custom prompts for each ad angle → OpenAI Image creates on-brand visuals in seconds → Links each image to specific ad copy automatically → Bulk generation with one checkbox → Editable prompts before image creation → Hosted images ready for immediate upload → Built in n8n + Airtable (zero coding) Perfect for ecomm operators, creative strategists, and Meta ad agencies. The workflow: 1. Drop in product URL 2. AI researches brand & audience 3. Generates 100+ ad copy variations 4. Creates 100+ custom image prompts 5. Produces 100+ static ad images All in under 5 minutes. >> No more creative bottlenecks. >> No more waiting on designers. Just static ads, at scale, on demand. Want access to the n8n template + Airtable database? Like + Comment "ADS" and I'll send it over.

@ArijanJanes 50

Made a list with 50+ listicle funnels Designs and links inside Figma. Study these and apply the same principles to your funnel. If you want the link: Comment "50" and it'll be auto-sent.

ROAS is the most dangerously misused metric in DTC I see a lot of brands set ROAS targets for their marketers and assume they’re protecting margin. In reality, they’re often: 1. Capping growth 2. Wasting spend 3. Driving acquisition costs through the roof We recently saw this play out with an 8-figure brand who came to us with a problem: CAC went from $25 → $60 in less than a year. They gave the agency margin-based ROAS targets. The agency scaled spend right to that ceiling. New Customer Acquisition turned completely unprofitable, and blended ROAS was hiding it. We came in as a strategic Growth Partner and rebuilt their acquisition & retention funnels. The result after 3 months? 1. Reduced CAC by 19% 2. Increased New Customer Acquisition by 3% 3. Identified & cut $257k in yearly wasted spend Here's why ROAS fails you: ROAS = Revenue ÷ Ad Spend. That’s it. No incrementality, no channel separation, no real understanding of where profit & growth actually comes from. I often call ROAS an "indicative metric" because it's something you spot-check & not something you obsess over. It does not tell the full story. In DTC, you only make money in two ways ✌️ New Customer Revenue → function of Ad Spend x Media Efficiency Returning Customer Revenue → function of New Customers × Repeat Rate That means you only have two real goals in marketing: Acquire customers at target CAC (offers, creative, angles, PMF). Reconvert them at target Repeat Rate (upsells, offers, post-purchase flows). If you’re still using ROAS as your north star, then you’re likely a lot more inefficient than you think. You should be tracking and optimizing for Spend, CAC (or NCROAS) + Repeat Rate. That’s the growth equation that actually compounds. What metric are you optimizing for?

Just flew my first ever @Starlink-enabled flight with @airBaltic & it's freakishly good. 1. Cleared my Slack 2. Joined our Monday Standup (0 lag) 3. Watched the @F1 highlights The best products are always the ones that make you forget you had a problem in the first place

@mikefutia Sora

Sora 2 API + n8n is f*cking ridiculous 🤯 This AI system automates an entire UGC content pipeline using n8n + the new Sora 2 API. Zero watermarks. HD output. Fully customizable video length. Perfect for ecommerce brands spending $10k+/month on influencer content that takes weeks to produce. Here's what's different with the API: Every video is HD quality with ZERO watermarks → Full commercial ownership → Custom video lengths (not locked to presets) → a few bucks per video vs $500+ per creator The n8n automation handles everything: → Upload one product image via n8n form → Add creative direction + set video duration → Sora 2 API generates HD UGC automatically → Outputs unboxings, demos, lifestyle content & product showcases → Production-ready videos delivered instantly No watermarks. No editing. No waiting on creators. Built 100% in n8n. Want the complete n8n workflow? > Comment "SORA" > Like this post And I'll send it over (must be following so I can DM)

@irmohkle Sora 2

@iamshackelford It's the way!

Agency people getting into brands will dominate the next decade. THE AGENCY-TO-BRAND PLAYBOOK 👇 1 - Setup Phase Build an agency first. Get cash flow positive. Learn on other people's budgets, not your own. Remove money stress from the equation completely. 2 - Launch Phase Use that agency cash to start your brand. You'll need it for: • Heavy inventory requirements • Pre-planning costs • The fact it barely pays you a salary (if at all) 3 - Scale Phase You HAVE to keep spending. Every single month. Forever. We're at 50+ W2 employees at BREZ. Every month the pattern repeats: • More revenue (great!) • More units sold (amazing!) • More orders needed (uh oh) • More inventory required (there goes the profit) A few agency-to-brand examples: • Zach Stuck Agency → Multiple brands • Jordan Menard Agency background → Native (sold $100M) • Me: Three agencies → BREZ Lesson: In ecommerce, you're broke until you're rich. And the distance between those two points is measured in years, not months. You can hit every revenue goal and never get ahead. Every dollar earned goes straight back into inventory. Then packaging. Then more inventory. Then a warehouse. Then more inventory. That's why agency people win. We have the cash flow to survive the valley of death. We know the game because we've played it with house money first. tl;dr • Start with services • Get Good at services • Build strong key players • Build a war chest • Then deploy it into a niche you know

@iamshackelford Giving mad David de Gea vibes 👀

This is for the former athletes turned employee / founder who's grinding right now.. You might be able to relate Every goalkeeper knows: you have 0.3 seconds to decide. After that, you're just a spectator. I learned this at nine years old, standing in goal, not the tallest kid on the field. While others relied on reach, I had to rely on reading the game. On making the call before anyone else even saw the play developing. Twenty years later, I still have that goalkeeper's mentality. As the last line of defense, you learn hesitation is death. You make the call and live with it. There's no committee in the goal. No consensus. Just you and the decision. This shaped everything about how the Shackelfords operate. We say "Shackelfords enjoy the work," but what we really mean is we enjoy the pressure. The moment where everything crystallizes and you either move or watch the ball hit the net. I've never been on a losing team. Not once. Not because I never made wrong decisions. I've made thousands. But because I learned early that being wrong is survivable. Being frozen is fatal. Most people freeze at decision points. They want more data. More certainty. More meetings. Meanwhile, the opportunity is already gone. The ball is already past them. My superpower isn't complex: → Articulate the emotion in the moment → Make a left-to-right decision → Execute without looking back No second-guessing. No paralysis. Just movement. I'm okay making wrong decisions. I'm VERY okay making decisions, period. This is who I am for my wife when life throws curveballs. For my partners when millions are on the line. For my team when everything's chaos and someone needs to call the play. Twenty years of split-second calls taught me that while everyone else is still analyzing, the game is already over. The goalkeeper's mentality: you don't get to think. You get to choose.

When did Google start doing crappy outreach with broken mergetags? This came from an actual google.com email address

Yo @ChatGPTapp?