Scalability School

Scalability School
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  • EVERY TWO WEEKS

Scalability School is your cheat code for building a more profitable DTC brand or agency. We break down tactical strategies, real-time wins, and tough lessons from three powerful perspectives: operator, agency, and community. It's not theory—it's what's actually working in the wild. Skip the fluff, steal what works, and scale with confidence.

  1. 18 DEC

    How to Use AI to Win in Marketing

    This episode is basically a tactical hands-on walkthrough for using AI in creative, without turning your ad account into generic "AI slop." Will Sartourious, owner of Selfmade.co, an agency that focuses on AI personas and AI performance creatives, joins us to lead us through his AI creative process and the importance of AI adoption in the social creative space.  He primarily lumps current AI creative usage into two buckets: Type 1: "Clone this ad for me." Fast volume, but you drift into sameness.  Type 2: Use AI to do the thinking work (research, synthesis, structure), then let humans do the "mushy middle" that differentiates. He's big on building PAM clusters (Persona–Angle–Motivation) so strategists aren't winging it and you can see where your creative gaps are before you ship more ads.  From here we get into the nitty gritty of his current workflows: Static → GIF/video: why GIFs often beat statics in clean A/Bs, and how to generate animated variants fast.  Tool split: Will uses Claude for more "creative" thinking, but uses ChatGPT specifically because it reads on-ad copy more reliably critical when your prompt needs to include every word that appears on the creative. Prompt iteration loop: generate → inspect output → feed output back in → ask for prompt correction (ex: "the copy disappears—fix it so it stays on screen"). Midjourney reality check: great for vibes/backdrops and motion experiments, but "sucks at product rendering," so you generate the scene and then swap in the real product using other tools.  We also dive into these Key takeaways How to find the missing creative angles in your account before spending another dollar. Cut out the Middle man: How you can stop using stock photos entirely with AI, without the brand even noticing.  The fastest way to turn a winning static into a GIF without opening any editing software. Why including every word of on-ad copy in the prompt matters more than being a "prompt genius". Why this AI tool is a secret weapon for AI creativity (It's literally  10X better than ChatGPT). The feedback-loop method to improve prompts without manually tweaking yourself into madness (we've all been here). The 1 tip that will make your AI people look less "plastic" and more realistic (texture/pores/realism) How Will used Sore to close a client live mid-call and how you can too. Grab Will's notes and see the final products produced during the episode, here. This episode is sponsored by Northbeam, the marketing attribution platform that we love here at Scalability School. If you're ready to cut through the noise, stop guessing, and actually see which ads are driving your business, book a demo at www.northbeam.io/demo, and tell them Scalability School sent you. Join the club.  To connect with Will Sartorious, you can follow him on x at https://x.com/will_sartorius or www.Selfmade.co  To connect with Andrew Foxwell send an email Andrew@foxwelldigital.com To connect with Brad Ploch send him a DM at https://x.com/brad_ploch   To connect with Zach Stuck send him a DM at https://x.com/zachmstuck  Learn More about the Foxwell Founders Community at https://foxwellfounders.com/

    59 min

  2. 11 DEC · BONUS

    BFCM Recap & Tactics To Pull Forward

    *]:pointer-events-auto [content-visibility:auto] supports-[content-visibility:auto]:[contain-intrinsic-size:auto_100lvh] scroll-mt-[calc(var(--header-height)+min(200px,max(70px,20svh)))]" dir="auto" tabindex="-1" data-turn-id= "039e736c-4eb5-4502-a0c0-eae8ef56dab4" data-testid= "conversation-turn-4" data-scroll-anchor="true" data-turn= "assistant"> This bonus BFCM episode is a full debrief on what actually worked over Black Friday/Cyber Monday with real numbers, not theory. Zach Stuck comes out of paternity leave to break down his most recent Twitter "Beef" on why most Google agencies have their incentives completely misaligned (especially when they're charging % of spend on branded search). He also goes over how his team engineered a BFCM weekend that drove huge revenue without torching margin. We walk through this offer that took hourly revenue from ~$50k to $142k and then again to $172k while still holding around 9x MER. We cover the exact structure of the offer, how it affected AOV, and why time-boxing the offer beat running a gift-with-purchase the entire weekend. You'll also hear how they built daily and hourly pacing models out of Shopify and ad platform data so they knew by midday whether they were ahead, behind, or needed to push harder. From there, we get into the channel and creative side: how much budget actually went into BFCM-specific ads vs evergreen, the retention structure that printed 10x+ ROAS and the specific ad concepts that spent over Black Friday and held strong through Cyber Monday. We even talk about total amount of emails and sms messages that went out on Black Friday alone, and why the list didn't revolt. If you're a media buyer or e-com operator looking to turn BFCM from "hope and vibes" into a repeatable system, this episode is basically the playbook you'd normally only get inside a private Slack group (like the Foxwell Founders Community). Key Takeaways:  What actually happens when you time-box an offer to a single hour on Black Friday. How many emails and texts you can really send on Black Friday before you burn your list The importance of building a BFCM pacing sheet to know if you're behind and need to push. How much budget actually went into BFCM-specific creative vs evergreen ads. What a "creative diversity" roadmap for BFCM actually looks like in practice. How you can structure a Meta retention campaign that prints a 10x+ ROAS without lying to yourself (or clients) about incrementality. How to let creative do the targeting and still keep accounts manageable through the BFCM chaos The specific BFCM ad concepts that actually spent $90k+ and worked. To connect with Andrew Foxwell send an email Andrew@foxwelldigital.com To connect with Brad Ploch send him a DM at https://x.com/brad_ploch   To connect with Zach Stuck send him a DM at https://x.com/zachmstuck   Learn More about the Foxwell Founders Community at https://foxwellfounders.com/ Learn more about Andromeda and GEM as Andrew breaks them down on the Perpetual Traffic Podcast. https://www.foxwelldigital.com/blog/the-new-meta-gem-era-how-andromeda-creative-diversification-amp-organic-signals-are-reshaping-performance-marketing

    46 min

  3. 4 DEC

    UGC WTF? - With Courtney Fritts

    This episode is basically a masterclass in how media buyers and UGC creators should actually work together, not just pretend to. Courtney walks through her unique vantage point as both a media buyer and a creator: she runs strategy and ad buying for brands from that spend from $3k/month all the way up to $1MM/month in spend, leads the Foxwell Founders "small spenders" cohort, and also produces UGC herself. This dual role lets her see where brands and creators constantly miss each other. Key Takeaways: They creative types that are currently working without overcomplicating things. Why your best-performing ad doesn't have a great hook rate, but is still printing money. Are you over paying creators for "usage rights" you don't actually need? What Courtney believes you should be paying creators for a piece of content. The 1 thing media buyers wished UGC creators understood about spend and why some creatives never leave the learning phase. How your creative brief might be the #1 thing killing authenticity and performance. How performance results could change by evaluating your creators on these two criteria over their logos and case studies. Why you shouldn't be asking creators to "go viral" and instead be building a system for consistent, high-quality, testable content. The amount of performance you are likely leaving on the table by chasing trends, and other no-nos when working with creators. Are you quietly over-indexing on marketing Twitter and case studies—and under-indexing on the nuance inside your own accounts? This episode is sponsored by Northbeam, the marketing attribution platform that we love here at Scalability School. If you're ready to cut through the noise, stop guessing, and actually see which ads are driving your business, book a demo at northbeam.io/demo, and tell them Scalability School sent you. Join the club. To connect with Courtney Fritts, you can email her at Courtney@axiommarketing.co or in one of the Foxwell Digital Communities: www.hivehausugc.com or FoxwellFounders.com To connect with Andrew Foxwell send an email Andrew@foxwelldigital.com To connect with Brad Ploch send him a DM at https://x.com/brad_ploch  To connect with Zach Stuck send him a DM at https://x.com/zachmstuck  Learn More about the Foxwell Founders Community at https://foxwellfounders.com/

    55 min

  4. 20 NOV

    Pixel Perfect: Is Your Tracking Lying to You?

    This episode dives deep into how much your tracking setup actually controls your Meta performance, and why most brands only pay attention to the pixel when things break. Brett walks through his journey from old-school media buying into early Facebook ads and how that evolved into Tag Hero, a specialist shop focused purely on technical conversion tracking across Meta, Google, TikTok, Snapchat, Pinterest, etc. He explains why data quality is the real throttle on performance and how you can have the best creative in the account, but if Meta isn't getting clean signals, the algorithm just can't do its job. Key Takeaways:  How you can tell if your Shopify → Meta tracking setup is actually "good enough"… or silently leaking conversions. If Meta says you're getting 8–13% more events with CAPI, are you actually set up to capture that lift—or just assuming you are. The easiest way to verify your pixel and CAPI events are deduplicating correctly instead of double-counting purchases. The Event Match Quality scores you should care about, and when a score is good vs a legit red flag Why this one tracking perameter is arguably more valuable than email for optimization. Why optimizing around a specific EMQ score might just be gaming a number that doesn't move revenue. When Shopify's default Facebook Sales Channel App is the right call and when it might be time to graduate to Elevar/Blotout/EdgeTag-style stacks. The incremental tracking upgrades that actually pay for themselves after you start spending 6 figures or more a month in ads. The truth of what exactly happens when Meta flags you as 'Health & Wellness' brand and depricates your lower funnel. How you can still win in health & wellness categories on Meta The key steps to confidently rule out tracking as the culprit when your ads stop working so you're not re-building creative for a data problem? This episode is sponsored by Northbeam, the marketing attribution platform that we love here at Scalability School. If you're ready to cut through the noise, stop guessing, and actually see which ads are driving your business, book a demo at northbeam.io/demo, and tell them Scalability School sent you. Join the club.  To connect with Brett Fish over at TagHero, you can DM him at https://x.com/brett_fish or head over to their site: https://taghero.io/   To connect with Andrew Foxwell send an email Andrew@foxwelldigital.com To connect with Brad Ploch send him a DM at https://x.com/brad_ploch To connect with Zach Stuck send him a DM at https://x.com/zachmstuck   Learn More about the Foxwell Founders Community at https://foxwellfounders.com/

    1h 6m

  5. 6 NOV

    The Dashboards That Make Us Millions

    This episode of the Scalability School podcast tackles why traditional e-commerce dashboards often fail and outlines the precise financial and operational metrics required for driving profitable growth in 7- and 8-figure D2C brands. The Andrew, Zach and Brad argue that dashboard failure stems from unclear metric definitions along with a failure to capture the full scope of business expenses. They advocate for moving beyond simple platform ROAS to focus on holistic metrics like Contribution Margin (CM) and/or Estimated Net Profit (by subtracting an estimate of OpEx). A major theme that arose during this conversation was the critical need to separate New Customer (NC) metrics (like AMER and CAC) from blended metrics, as high blended performance can mask a dying new customer acquisition engine. They also stress that for non-subscription brands, LTV can sometimes be a misleading vanity metric that offers poor cash flow guidance. The episode concludes with a deep dive into using operational metrics like product sales breakdown and day-of-week sales efficiency to inform daily media buying decisions, introducing the key creative signal: Spend Velocity. Key Takeaways  How your blended MER target might actually be masking a New Customer Acquisition (NCA) disaster Why dashboards can help ensure your entire team is looking at the same "Revenue" number How to tell if you are wasting budget on the wrong days How to accurately calculat true profitability before the month closes Why this should be your key metric for predicting creative winners within 3 days Why this 1 metric might be hurting your cash flow if you are a non-subscription businesses This episode is sponsored by Northbeam, the marketing attribution platform that we love here at Scalability School. If you're ready to cut through the noise, stop guessing, and actually see which ads are driving your business, book a demo at northbeam.io/demo, and tell them Scalability School sent you. Join the club.  To connect with Andrew Foxwell send an email Andrew@foxwelldigital.com To connect with Brad Ploch send him a DM at https://x.com/brad_ploch To connect with Zach Stuck send him a DM at https://x.com/zachmstuck Learn More about the Foxwell Founders Community at https://foxwellfounders.com/

    52 min

  6. 23 OCT

    BFCM: Your Questions Answered

    This week's Scalability School is a tactical one answering ALL of your BFCM (Black Friday/Cyber Monday) questions. Andrew, Zach & Brad cover how to pace and budget through the holiday surge, build offers that protect margin while lifting AOV, and line up Meta/Google + Email/SMS into a single MER-driven plan. You'll hear pragmatic guidance on creative angles, inventory-aware campaigns (and what to do when you're light or heavy on stock), discount frameworks that don't nuke LTV, and practical measurement (MER, CPA, and "sanity check" rules). The guys wrap it up with channel sequencing (what runs when) and a concrete weekly timeline to execute without panic. Key Takeaways: How smart brands set BFCM budget and pacing so they don't blow spend too early. The offer types that actually move volume without wrecking margin. - How to properly adjust bids, caps, and campaign structure on Meta when auctions heat up. - The "MER guardrails" to keep things stable during BFCM (and when it's okay to see a dip). - Planning inventory-aware promos (overstock vs. thin stock) without confusing the customer. - The creative themes and formats that typically win BIG during BFCM - When to lean into Google (Shopping/Brand Search) vs. Meta for incremental volume. - How to measure success when attribution goes sideways. - What your backup plan should be if your first offer underperforms on Friday morning. This episode is sponsored by Northbeam, the marketing attribution platform that we love here at Scalability School. If you're ready to cut through the noise, stop guessing, and actually see which ads are driving your business, book a demo at northbeam.io/demo, and tell them Scalability School sent you. Join the club. To connect with Andrew Foxwell send an email Andrew@foxwelldigital.com To connect with Brad Ploch send him a DM at https://x.com/brad_ploch To connect with Zach Stuck send him a DM at https://x.com/zachmstuck  Learn More about the Foxwell Founders Community at https://foxwellfounders.com/

    54 min

  7. 16 OCT · BONUS

    BFCM Bonus Tactics - The Pacing + Holiday Roadmap

    In this conversation, Brad discusses strategies for maximizing revenue during Black Friday and the holiday season. He emphasizes the importance of understanding revenue peaks, analyzing advertising costs, and planning effective promotions. The discussion also covers the significance of timing in marketing efforts, particularly around key shopping days like Black Friday and Cyber Monday, and how to leverage gifting opportunities leading up to Christmas. Finally, Brad highlights the need for brands to adapt their messaging and strategies as they transition into the new year. Key Takeaways Understanding when to expect revenue peaks through BFCM How analyzing historical data helps in planning marketing strategies. Why your CPM and conversion rates will fluctuate significantly during Q4 When its best to start promotions to capture initial demand effectively. Why gifting messaging should ramp up as Christmas approaches. How to ensure your brand is correctly adjusting ad spend through the holidays How utilizing this free tool can maximize sales opportunities. The Post-Christmas strategies you should focus on to gain new year momentum. To grab the Q4 Calendar head here This episode is sponsored by Northbeam, the marketing attribution platform that we love here at Scalability School. If you're ready to cut through the noise, stop guessing, and actually see which ads are driving your business, book a demo at northbeam.io/demo, and tell them Scalability sent you. Join the club.  To connect with Andrew Foxwell send an email Andrew@foxwelldigital.com To connect with Brad Ploch send him a DM at https://x.com/brad_ploch To connect with Zach Stuck send him a DM at https://x.com/zachmstuck Learn More about the Foxwell Founders Community at https://foxwellfounders.com/

    26 min

  8. 9 OCT

    The BFCM Prep Guide

    We break down ABO vs CBO, budget pacing, offer architectures (sitewide %, tiers, gifts, bundles), landing-page quick wins, and the email/SMS cadence that stacks revenue—plus day-of MER guardrails and intra-day pacing. #BFCM #Ecommerce #MediaBuying    Key Takeaways ABO or CBO: When each campaign structure can win and why The simples offer architectures that won't wreck margins Pacing budgets so you don't blow learnings (or spend) before the big days The landing-page tweaks that move the most revenue during BFCM Can a small site-wide + stacked gift be smarter than a deeper discount? How shipping cutoffs should be shaping your promo calendar and messaging The day-of MER guardrails and hourly checks that will keep you on target This episode is sponsored by Northbeam, the marketing attribution platform that we love here at Scalability School. If you're ready to cut through the noise, stop guessing, and actually see which ads are driving your business, book a demo at northbeam.io/demo, and tell them Scalability sent you. Join the club. To connect with Andrew Foxwell send an email Andrew@foxwelldigital.com To connect with Brad Ploch send him a DM at https://x.com/brad_ploch To connect with Zach Stuck send him a DM at https://x.com/zachmstuck Learn More about the Foxwell Founders Community at https://foxwellfounders.com/

    51 min
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About

Scalability School is your cheat code for building a more profitable DTC brand or agency. We break down tactical strategies, real-time wins, and tough lessons from three powerful perspectives: operator, agency, and community. It's not theory—it's what's actually working in the wild. Skip the fluff, steal what works, and scale with confidence.

Information

  • Creator
    Scalability School
  • Years Active
    2K
  • Episodes
    21
  • Rating
    Explicit
  • Copyright
    © 2025
  • Show Website
    Scalability School

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