Scalability School

Scalability School
  • 0.0 (0)
  • Marketing
  • 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. 11 hr ago

    What You Should Pay a DTC Agency in 2026: Real Pricing Benchmarks | EP 37

    How much should you pay a DTC agency in 2026? For Meta ads management on its own, the market has settled between $2,500 and $5,000 a month, and paying above $5,000 only makes sense when the brand spends six figures a month or the scope adds creative, forecasting, and CRO. Creative is the one line item worth paying at the top of the market, because a single breakout ad can add $20,000 to $50,000 a month in profitable spend. Percentage-of-spend deals are fair when they carry a hard cap and a CPA or ROAS target attached, and they should never be charged against branded search. DTC agency pricing is all over the map, so Andrew Foxwell, Brad Ploch, and Zach Stuck break down what you should actually pay in 2026 using a Foxwell Founders survey of 200+ agencies. You'll learn the real retainer ranges for Meta ads management, when percentage of spend is fair and when it is a red flag, what a media buyer should be doing to earn the fee, and what creative, email, SMS, landing pages, and CRO cost right now. We discuss: What 200+ agencies reported charging, and why 4 out of 5 quote a flat retainer or a retainer plus a percentage of spend Why $2,500 to $5,000 a month has become the market rate for Meta ads management with no creative attached When to keep an agency, bring it in-house, or pay up for one exceptional freelancer Why percentage of spend only works with a hard cap and a CPA or ROAS target At what monthly spend incrementality testing starts to matter Why nobody should charge a percentage of spend on branded search Why creative is the one agency worth paying the most for What to pay content creators directly, with and without whitelisting Email and SMS pricing, and the attribution model that gets brands fleeced Landing page and CRO pricing per page and per month, plus five fixes that work on almost every store Get the newsletter: https://www.scalabilityschool.com/scalability-newsletter Full Episode and transcript: https://www.scalabilityschool.com/scalability-school-podcast/what-you-should-pay-a-dtc-agency-in-2026Learn more: https://www.scalabilityschool.com This episode of the Scalability School podcast is sponsored by NorthBeam and they just launched Northbeam Incrementality. Northbeam Incrementality gives you easy, automated, self-service incrementality tests, while protecting you from the major mistakes so many people make while running incrementality tests. Your MTA handles the daily tactics, your MMM guides the long-term planning, and Incrementality provides the causal truth. It's a closed loop that allows you to scale what works and cut what doesn't. Right now when you head over to www.northbeam.io/incrementality, they're offering Scalability School listeners 50% off unlimited tests for a year when you join. Just tell them we sent you! 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 the The Hive Haus Creators Community at http://HiveHausUGC.com  Scalability School is a weekly show from Andrew Foxwell, Brad Ploch, and Zach Stuck about what is actually working right now in DTC growth. No theory, no recycled LinkedIn takes, just the numbers and decisions behind real brands and real ad accounts. Chapters 00:00 What you should pay a DTC agency in 2026 01:58 What 200+ agencies told us about how they price 02:45 Meta ads management pricing: the floor, the market rate, the ceiling 04:42 Should the fee be flat, or tied to performance? 05:13 Why $3K to $5K became the market rate for ad management 07:36 When to use an agency, go in-house, or hire a freelancer 10:20 Why percentage of spend works when you cap it 11:01 What a media buyer should actually do to earn the fee 16:52 The gap between pressing buttons and real media buying 19:17 At what monthly spend does incrementality actually matter? 22:42 Google Ads agency pricing and the branded search problem 28:45 Creative agency pricing and why it is worth paying the most for 31:45 What to pay content creators directly 35:58 Email and SMS agency pricing without getting fleeced 39:42 Onshore vs offshore teams and what actually changes 43:20 Landing page and CRO pricing, per page and per month 48:15 How fast a landing page should go from idea to live 50:03 Five CRO fixes that work on almost every store

  2. 30 Jul

    Why AI Is Making Creative Strategists Lazy (And How to Fix It) | Hannah Houg & Matthew Gattozzi

    In this episode, Andrew Foxwell and Brad Ploch sit down with Hannah Houg and Matthew Gattozzi to answer the question every team is quietly avoiding: how do you use AI for creative strategy without losing the judgment that makes ads work? The short answer is that you bring AI a hypothesis instead of asking it for one. You'll learn which four parts of the process to protect from AI entirely, why the briefing stage is where ad quality actually degrades, and how to give your strategists room to think without torching your output. Hannah has built ads and campaigns for 300+ DTC brands. Matthew's studio has driven $100M+ in client revenue. Both use AI daily. Both have watched it quietly weaken the same muscle they get paid for. We discuss: Why every creative brief in the space suddenly looks the same The difference between AI helping your research and AI writing your hypothesis Why AI is good at following rules and bad at breaking them, and why that matters for scale How Hannah lost the ability to write a script after a few months of AI-first drafting What a genuinely good AI input looks like (and why it's built before you open the tool) The one-sentence goal every brief needs before anyone writes a word Why building 7 personas on a $10k/month budget is a math problem, not a strategy What "deep context" actually means, and why most teams don't have it Why the efficiency-vs-quality fight is a leadership conversation, not a tools conversation Join The Scalability School Newsletter: https://www.scalabilityschool.com/scalability-newsletter This episode is sponsored by Proppel, the hiring agency that has placed more than 75 employees for Foxwell Founders members. Get 10% off your first hire when you mention the Scalability School Podcast: https://www.weareproppel.com/foxwell-founders-proppel This episode of the Scalability School podcast is sponsored by NorthBeam and they just launched Northbeam Incrementality. Northbeam Incrementality gives you easy, automated, self-service incrementality tests, while protecting you from the major mistakes so many people make while running incrementality tests. Your MTA handles the daily tactics, your MMM guides the long-term planning, and Incrementality provides the causal truth. It's a closed loop that allows you to scale what works and cut what doesn't. Right now when you head over to www.northbeam.io/incrementality, they're offering Scalability School listeners 50% off unlimited tests for a year when you join. Just tell them we sent you! To connect with Hannah Houg send a DM at: https://x.com/hannahhoug To connect with Matthew Gattozzi send a DM at: https://x.com/MatthewGattozzi 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 the The Hive Haus Creators Community at http://HiveHausUGC.com.   Chapters 00:00 Intro: why AI creative strategy is producing the same ads everywhere 04:08 Why every creative brief suddenly looks the same 07:18 What makes a great ad, and why AI can't break rules 10:22 Is research or briefing where AI actually hurts ad quality? 12:26 Why AI can't come up with the big idea 14:33 The danger of letting AI write your hypothesis 16:39 How AI quietly degrades your copywriting muscle 19:45 How to find an insight before you open AI 25:55 Why hyper-specific creative is winning on Meta right now 29:57 Why your team needs space to think, not more output 30:58 Has any LLM actually cracked ad copywriting? 33:00 Why creator talent match beats a perfect script 37:07 What a good AI input actually looks like 40:10 The one-sentence goal every creative brief needs 44:14 The persona trap that sinks small ad budgets 47:21 What "deep context" actually means 50:24 Why strategists want to slow down while owners push efficiency 53:27 Why this is a leadership problem, not a tools problem 56:32 Break your margins today for performance later 57:32 Bonus: the Michigan method

  3. 7 May

    How Marin Scales Brands to 9 Figures

    Marin Istvanic joins Scalability School for a deep tactical session on what it actually takes to scale e-commerce brands to nine figures with paid media on Meta. Marin is one of the most hands-on media buyers in the DTC space, managing upwards of 5 to 7 million dollars a month in ad spend across his agency clients and his own internal brand (and this episode reflects that). The conversation launches right into the hard hitting questions with the debate around ABO versus CBO and when each actually makes sense. Marin's full whitelisting flywheel (300+ influencer profiles, authority pages, dark posts running through multiple handles in the same session), cost cap weekend scaling and what he calls the "gladiators arena" ad set, how he uses different attribution settings as a signal to Meta that a campaign is structurally different, and why he still manually picks every thumbnail across all his accounts. He also shares how he used AI to synthesize his full YouTube library into a 50-page media buying philosophy document and then how he fed his top-spending ads into a landing page template that outperformed the control by 10%. Key Takeaways ABO vs. CBO - is the debate actually settled, or does the right answer depend on something most people never measure? Is whitelisting dead - or are you just running it wrong? What does a "cost cap weekend scaling" actually look like in practice — and how to spend $25K on a Saturday without blowing up your CPA? How changing this window actually tells Meta this is a different campaign. Why Marin still manually picks every thumbnail - If the "hacks" everyone is chasing are mostly noise, this is what actually moves the needle at scale. This episode of the Scalability School podcast is sponsored by NorthBeam and they just launched Northbeam Incrementality. Northbeam Incrementality gives you easy, automated, self-service incrementality tests, while protecting you from the major mistakes so many people make while running incrementality tests. Your MTA handles the daily tactics, your MMM guides the long-term planning, and Incrementality provides the causal truth. It's a closed loop that allows you to scale what works and cut what doesn't. Right now when you head over to www.northbeam.io/incrementality, they're offering Scalability School listeners 50% off unlimited tests for a year when you join. Just tell them we sent you! To connect with Marin, send him a DM at https://x.com/IstvanicMarin 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 the The Hive Haus Creators Community at http://HiveHausUGC.com

  4. 9 Apr

    Inside The Ad Account: How To Do Creative Testing In 2026

    Host Brad flies solo to walk through exactly how his team structures Meta creative testing across eight figures a year in ad spend. The episode is a tactical follow-up to a previous episode with Phil, prompted by a viral Twitter thread Brad posted on the same topic. The core philosophy: stop trying to outthink Meta's algorithm on budget allocation. Instead, run a single CBO campaign per product or offer, treat ad sets as simple folders (not audience segments), and let Meta decide where the money goes. Brad backs this up with real ad account screenshots, shows why a higher-spending campaign with a lower ROAS can actually be healthier than it looks, and closes out with answers to the most common follow-up questions he received from the community. Key Takeaways Why Meta's algorithm is smarter than you at deciding which of your ads deserves more budget and what that means for how you should structure your campaigns. The single reason you need to stop creating more ad sets and start stacking all your ads in one. Your top-spending ad set has a lower ROAS than the one barely getting any spend, does that mean you're burning money, or is Meta showing you something you're missing? The truth behind what actually happens when you pull it into an ABO to force-test it. How do you build a creative testing system that generates consistent weekly output without needing a huge production budget or team. What "spend is a signal" actually means for your creatives and how you should decide when to turn an ad off (You might actually be turning them off too early) Is splitting your account into a testing campaign and a scaling campaign helping you, or just adding complexity that slows down Meta's learning? How new visitor percentage and frequency metrics should change the way you interpret your campaign's ROAS. The actual risk of running ads to two completely different customer personas inside the same ad set on broad targeting. How to tell when it's time to question your creative quality versus just staying patient with your launch cadence. This episode of the Scalability School podcast is sponsored by NorthBeam and they just launched Northbeam Incrementality. Northbeam Incrementality gives you easy, automated, self-service incrementality tests, while protecting you from the major mistakes so many people make while running incrementality tests. Your MTA handles the daily tactics, your MMM guides the long-term planning, and Incrementality provides the causal truth. It's a closed loop that allows you to scale what works and cut what doesn't. Right now when you head over to www.northbeam.io/incrementality , they're offering Scalability School listeners 50% off unlimited tests for a year when you join. Just tell them we sent you! 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 the The Hive Haus Creators Community at http://HiveHausUGC.com

  5. 26 Mar

    The Evolution of Creative Strategy With Sarah Levinger

    In this episode of Scalability School, Andrew Foxwell is joined by Sarah Levenger and special guest host Will Sartoris for a deep conversation on what separates average creative strategy from high-performing creative strategy in 2026. The core theme is that winning creative is not just about producing more ads or testing more formats. It is about understanding people better. Sarah breaks down how the best creative strategists build repeatable systems for ideation, stay close to the customer experience, and work backward from business goals instead of defaulting to ad format first. From there, the episode gets tactical with a breakdown of behavioral-science principles like loss aversion, anchoring, framing effects, social proof, bandwagon effect, and System 1 vs. System 2 thinking. The big takeaway is that most brands are still overusing urgency, surface-level psychology, and creative trend chasing. The better path is sharper positioning, better message framing, more respect for the customer, and creative diversity rooted in psychology, not just format. Key takeaways Are the best creative strategists winning because they make better ads, or because they build better systems for ideas? Are you still choosing ad format first over business objective and customer type? Have you already burned through your early adopters without realizing your message needs to evolve? Are your ads accidentally disrespecting your potential customers? Should your brand be using supportive or guilt-based messaging to convert? Is plain old social proof losing power? Does your internal team believe the same thing about the brand that your customers do? Is AI helping your team think more clearly, or just helping you make more of the same content faster? This episode of the Scalability School podcast is sponsored by NorthBeam and they just launched Northbeam Incrementality. Northbeam Incrementality gives you easy, automated, self-service incrementality tests, while protecting you from the major mistakes so many people make while running incrementality tests. Your MTA handles the daily tactics, your MMM guides the long-term planning, and Incrementality provides the causal truth. It's a closed loop that allows you to scale what works and cut what doesn't. Right now when you head over to www.northbeam.io/incrementality , they're offering Scalability School listeners 50% off unlimited tests for a year when you join. Just tell them we sent you! To learn more about Sarah Levinger, you can follow her here: https://x.com/SarahLevinger 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 the The Hive Haus Creators Community at http://HiveHausUGC.com

  6. 20 Mar ·  Bonus

    Uncovering Agency Trends From The Foxwell Founders 2026 Agency Report with Andrew Faris

    Andrew Foxwell (Foxwell Founders / Scalability School) sits down with Andrew Faris (AJF Growth / The Andrew Faris Podcast) for a joint co-release episode to break down the findings from the Foxwell Founders x Motion 2026 State of Agencies Report. A data-rich survey of hundreds of agency owners and in-house operators across 30 countries. The conversation covers AI's dual role as the #1 growth opportunity and the #1 threat for agencies, why only 11% of agencies have produced clear top-performing AI-generated ad winners, the reality behind agency margins (42% running net margins above 30% while many founders still struggle), why in-housing is the #1 reason agencies lose clients — and why it usually backfires — and the uncomfortable truth that many agency founders grow for ego rather than strategy. Along the way, Faris offers a sharp framework on how brands should think about paying their agencies, and Foxwell shares candid coaching insights on what separates agencies that thrive from those that stall out. Key Takeaways: Why 26% of agencies say AI-powered services are their biggest growth opportunity — yet privately admit they're terrified of it? Is AI actually working for creatives or is just generating slop? (Only 11% of agencies have produced a clear top-performing AI-generated ad winner.) 42% of agencies report net margins above 30%. So why are so many agency founders telling Andrew Foxwell they're broke? Is in-housing the worst move most brands make? The gross margin range your agency should be sitting between. Are agency founders growing because they have a strategy or because they want to sit at the big [kid] agency table?  When the average tenure of an in-house growth director might only be ~18 months, is there a fundamental misalignment between founders and the people they hire? If AI amplifies slop just as well as it amplifies great ideas, why do so many agencies think volume is the play? Should more brands be firing their CRO agency and building more with Claude Code? This episode of the Scalability School podcast is sponsored by NorthBeam and they just launched Northbeam Incrementality. Northbeam Incrementality gives you easy, automated, self-service incrementality tests, while protecting you from the major mistakes so many people make while running incrementality tests. Your MTA handles the daily tactics, your MMM guides the long-term planning, and Incrementality provides the causal truth. It's a closed loop that allows you to scale what works and cut what doesn't. Right now when you head over to www.northbeam.io/incrementality, they're offering Scalability School listeners 50% off unlimited tests for a year when you join. Just tell them we sent you! To learn more about Andrew Faris, The Andrew Faris Podcast and AJF Growth you can follow him on X: ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠https://x.com/andrewjfaris Youtube: https://www.youtube.com/@andrewfarispodcast Email: podcast@ajfgrowth.com Work With AJF Growth: https://ajfgrowth.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/ Learn More about the The Hive Haus Creators Community at http://HiveHausUGC.com

  7. 12 Mar

    How AI Is Rebuilding Every DTC Creative Team

    In this episode of the Scalability School podcast, hosts Andrew Foxwell and Brad Ploch sit down with Reza, co-founder of Motion, for a deep dive into how AI is fundamentally reshaping the way DTC creative teams operate. Reza shares his perspective on the widening gap between data-driven media buyers and creative producers, and why the most valuable professionals in the space are the ones who can bridge both worlds. The conversation covers the evolution of the creative strategist role from simple brief-writing to a full-stack function that blends paid social performance analysis, creative concepting, and now AI-powered agent workflows. Reza introduces a powerful mental model: every knowledge worker should think of themselves as an allocator of AI tokens, and the goal is to push agents to work for longer and longer stretches autonomously. The episode also explores practical use cases for AI agents in creative strategy, including analyzing thousands of agent conversations using swarms of AI workers, iterating on top-performing ads using existing footage, and how Motion's AI agent (Runneth) is processing and categorizing every ad creative to surface actionable insights. Reza drops a provocative prediction: in the near future, the only job left will be allocating AI tokens, and if you're not building that muscle now, you're falling behind. Our new "After Hours" segment dives into hooks as the DNA of creative performance, why brand teams are increasingly disconnected from the direct response engine that actually drives revenue, and how creative strategists are becoming the real mini-CMOs of DTC companies.  KEY TAKEAWAYS: What if your only job is being an allocator of AI tokens? Are you still thinking of AI as a chatbot instead of a workforce? Is your creative strategist actually a mini-CMO? Why hooks are the DNA of your entire creative system. Is your brand team holding back your direct response engine? What would you do if you had to spend $2,000 in AI credits this week? Can two minutes of footage actually produce 50 unique ads?  Is this the year under-hyped AI products of 2025 actually work? This episode of the Scalability School podcast is sponsored by NorthBeam and they just launched Northbeam Incrementality. Northbeam Incrementality gives you easy, automated, self-service incrementality tests, while protecting you from the major mistakes so many people make while running incrementality tests. Your MTA handles the daily tactics, your MMM guides the long-term planning, and Incrementality provides the causal truth. It's a closed loop that allows you to scale what works and cut what doesn't. Right now when you head over to northbeam.io/incrementality, they're offering Scalability School listeners 50% off unlimited tests for a year when you join. Just tell them we sent you! To learn more about Rezza and Motion you can follow him on https://x.com/rezakhadjavi, https://x.com/motionapp_ or head to https://motionapp.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/  Learn More about the The Hive Haus Creators Community at http://HiveHausUGC.com

  8. 26 Feb

    How To Test Creative On Meta In 2026

    In this episode of Scalability School, host Andrew Foxwell is joined by Phil Kiel of Taikun Digital and co-host Brad Ploch to tackle the single most-asked question in the Foxwell Founders community: how do you actually test creative on Meta in 2026? The question was asked over 160 times in just 45 days, making it the undisputed #1 topic among media buyers and brand operators in the community. The conversation digs into two distinct camps of creative testing, forced spend (ABO) versus letting ads earn spend (CBO) and unpacks the real-world pros, cons, and trade-offs of each. Phil, who runs accounts at significant scale, makes a compelling case for the CBO-first, content-centric approach, arguing that the role of Meta's algorithm is to allocate spend to the best creative, not for buyers to manually dictate it. The episode also confronts the volume trap: the pressure media buyers feel to launch massive quantities of ads every month. Phil's take is refreshing and practical, 8 to 10 solid concepts per month (roughly 40–50 assets) is a solid starting point for most brands, built around strong creative briefs rather than raw volume. The hosts challenge the Twitter/X culture of flex-posting ad launch numbers, arguing the real metric that matters is creative quality and concept diversity. Key Takeaways: Are you forcing spend into creative tests and accidentally funding your worst ads? Is the ad set structure in your Meta account actually doing anything, or is it just an expensive folder? How many new creative concepts should you be launching per month? CBO vs. ABO for creative testing: which one is actually right for your account right now? Why launching too many ads may be training your account to spend on losers.  What does it actually mean to 'let ads earn spend' and how to know when a creative concept has really failed versus just not getting a fair shot. Why creative volume is the wrong metric to optimize and what you should be tracking instead. What's the difference between a creative concept and an ad asset? The one thing you should do today if you're a brand owner paralyzed by creative output pressure. This episode of the Scalability School podcast is sponsored by NorthBeam and they just launched Northbeam Incrementality. Northbeam Incrementality gives you easy, automated, self-service incrementality tests, while protecting you from the major mistakes so many people make while running incrementality tests. Your MTA handles the daily tactics, your MMM guides the long-term planning, and Incrementality provides the causal truth. It's a closed loop that allows you to scale what works and cut what doesn't. Right now when you head over to northbeam.io/incrementality, they're offering Scalability School listeners 50% off unlimited tests for a year when you join. Just tell them we sent you! To learn more about Phil Kiel and the Taikun Digital team you can follow him on X https://x.com/PhilKiel or head to https://www.taikundigital.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/ Learn More about the The Hive Haus Creators Community at http://HiveHausUGC.com

See All (40)

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
    2025 - 2026
  • Episodes
    40
  • Rating
    Clean
  • Copyright
    © 2025
  • Show Website
    Scalability School

You Might Also Like