Hey {{ First Name | Founder }},
I've spent a lot of time this year auditing accounts, working with founders, testing creative, and helping brands scale.
The more I do it, the more I find myself coming back to the same handful of beliefs.
And this one's coming to you from Sri Lanka 🇱🇰 - I've been here all week with the family, mostly laptop-free.
Just me, my 9 year old son, my partner, his sister, and a lot of tuk tuk rides.
Some of these are controversial. Some are obvious. But together they form the lens through which I look at almost every eCommerce business and whether it will succeed.
Here they are.
1. Creative Has Replaced Targeting
The days of obsessing over audiences are largely behind us.
Meta doesn't need you to tell it who to target anymore.
It needs your creative to tell it who to find.
Your job is no longer building complicated audience structures. Your job is creating ads that resonate with specific types of people.
The clearer the message, the better Meta gets at finding more of those people.
Keep your targeting broad. Put your energy into creative.
2. Most Brands Are Making Far Too Few Ads
This is probably the single biggest bottleneck I see.
Brands want to scale spend from $5k a month to $50k a month while producing the same amount of creative.
It doesn't work.
Creative volume needs to scale alongside media spend.
But there's an important caveat.
More ads isn't the goal.
More intentional ads is the goal.
10 random pieces of content won't outperform three ads built around strong customer insights.
3. Almost Nobody Is Doing Enough Customer Research
Everyone wants better hooks.
Very few people want to spend time reading reviews.
The irony is that's exactly where the best hooks come from.
Your customers are constantly telling you:
Why they bought
What nearly stopped them buying
What they love most
How they describe the problem
The answers are sitting in reviews, comments, support tickets, surveys and customer interviews.
For every minute you spend making ads, spend five minutes understanding customers.
4. Partnership Ads Are Still One of the Biggest Opportunities on Meta
In almost every audit I do, Partnership Ads are under-utilised.
Most brands are spending less than 10% of their budget behind them, often none at all!
The strongest accounts?
Often 20-30% or more.
People trust people more than brands.
That simple reality isn't changing anytime soon.
If you're serious about scaling Meta, creator-led advertising needs to be part of the plan.
5. Personas Matter More Than Ever
Not demographics.
Psychology.
I care much less about whether your customer is a 34-year-old female living in Sydney.
I care much more about:
What motivates her
What frustrates her
What she aspires to
What beliefs she already holds
That's where great marketing comes from.
When you try to talk to everyone, you usually end up resonating with nobody.
6. Incremental Reach Predicts Future Growth
Most brands watch CPA and ROAS.
The problem is those are lagging indicators.
By the time they deteriorate, the problem has often been building for weeks.
I pay much closer attention to whether we're continuing to reach new people efficiently.
When reach starts declining, rising acquisition costs often follow shortly afterwards.
The best operators spot the trend early.
7. Landing Pages Deserve As Much Attention As Ads
I still see brands spending thousands on creative and almost nothing on their website experience.
That's backwards.
A better landing page improves:
Conversion rate
Signal quality
Acquisition efficiency
Scale potential
Meta wants users to have a good experience after the click.
The better that experience, the easier growth becomes.
8. Meta Is Still The Best New Customer Acquisition Platform On The Planet
Every year someone declares Meta dead.
Every year it keeps delivering.
For brands with a differentiated product, strong creative and a willingness to test aggressively, Meta remains the most powerful acquisition channel available.
Google absolutely has a role to play.
But for many DTC brands, Google captures demand.
Meta creates it.
That's an important distinction.
9. The Brands Winning Today Know Their Numbers
Not just ROAS.
The real numbers.
Contribution margin.
nCAC.
MER.
Customer lifetime value.
Retention rates.
The deeper your understanding of the economics of your business, the harder you can push for growth while remaining profitable.
The brands guessing are either growing too slowly or burning cash.
10. AI Will Create The Next Competitive Advantage
Everyone is talking about AI for ads.
I think the bigger opportunity is AI for operations.
The brands that use AI to reduce operating costs, improve efficiency and eliminate repetitive work will have more cash available for growth.
And more cash available for growth means:
More creative
More testing
More reach
More customers
The winners won't necessarily be the brands with the best AI.
They'll be the brands that use AI to build the strongest economic engine.
Curious about how this approach could work for your eCommerce store?
It’s the same growth framework we teach inside Ecomm Rockets.
👉 Book a free coffee chat here: https://calendly.com/jessiehealy/coffee_with_jessie
Or reply to this email and we'll find a time that works for you.
Jessie x
