Scalability School

How do you build a DTC offer that raises profit without hurting conversion rate? Simplify the offer so a shopper understands it in seconds, then raise MSRP so you can show a bigger discount at a higher final price. The offers scaling DTC brands run today are buy more save more, a discounted first subscription order, or tiered dollar-off bundles. Brian Ng of Digital Ride raised one brand's MSRP to $74.95 behind a 50% discount and saw conversion rate hold steady while the brand moved from a monthly loss to profit. In this episode, Andrew Foxwell, Brad Ploch and Zach Stuck talk DTC offer strategy with Brian Ng of Digital Ride, covering how to raise prices without losing conversions, the three offers scaling brands run right now, and how a $10M a month brand manages creative with outside agencies. You'll learn why raising MSRP behind a bigger discount can lift profit at the same conversion rate, how to test a new offer with a single URL parameter, and why more creative volume often makes performance worse. We discuss: What a bad DTC offer looks like, and why confusing offer pages lose the sale The three offer structures scaling DTC brands use: buy more save more, subscription-first, and tiered bundles How Brian raised MSRP to $74.95 behind a 50% discount and turned a monthly loss into profit How to test offers with Convert or Intelligems experiments versus sending ads to a new landing page How to forecast ecommerce revenue year over year and why you shouldn't scale before new customer ROAS is there Running a $10M a month brand's creative through three agencies with no in-house strategists Pricing psychology: why $39.99 beats $35.99, and a $30 price change that lifted profit per session 40% Get the newsletter: https://www.scalabilityschool.com/scalability-newsletter Learn 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 Brian Ng: https://x.com/briannjho To connect with Andrew Foxwell send an email [email protected] 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 the podcast for media buyers, agency owners and DTC operators who want to grow without guessing, hosted by Andrew Foxwell, Brad Ploch and Zach Stuck. Chapters 00:00 DTC offer strategy: why $39.99 beats $35.99 02:35 How Digital Ride grows DTC brands as a growth partner 05:27 How to forecast ecommerce revenue year over year 08:56 Can creative agencies replace an in-house creative team? 14:26 How much creative a $10M/month brand launches 22:29 The 3 offers scaling DTC brands run right now 23:55 How to test a new offer: Convert experiments vs new landing pages 25:29 How raising MSRP turned a monthly loss into profit 30:25 Pricing psychology: the $30 price change that lifted profit 40%

How do you scale a subscription app with Meta ads? Start with an offer whose value is obviously outsized for the price, then test the packaging rather than the product. Format Finder moved from a single $97 plan to $29, $59, and $97 tiers, and the single change that moved AOV the most was toggling annual billing on by default. Free trials failed outright because the cost to acquire a trial on Meta never backed out. Target customers with a need rather than a want, since need-driven buyers churn less and complain less, and turn your best users into your ad creators by paying them a percentage of the spend their ads carry. Scaling a subscription app with Meta ads comes down to the offer, the pricing packaging, and where the creative comes from. Brad Ploch and Zach Stuck sit down with Naveed, who went from affiliate marketing to a 45-person performance agency to an ecommerce brand to Format Finder, the app he built in three weeks and now runs at $20,000 to $25,000 a day in Meta ad spend. You'll learn how he builds an offer, the pricing tests that worked and the one that failed, the campaign structure behind the spend, and the creator flywheel that turns his own users into his best-performing ads. We discuss: - How to tell whether an offer is worth running before you spend a dollar - Why problem-solution fit matters more than unit economics at the start - The move from a single $97 plan to $29, $59, and $97 tiers, and why the free   trial never backed out on Meta - The pricing change that moved AOV the most, and it was not the price - Why customers with a need churn less than customers with a want, and how a   realtor funnel tested that theory - Why he runs one CBO split by geo, no ABO testing, and no interest targeting - The creator flywheel: users who hit a million views make his ads and take 5%   of the spend those ads carry - What a one-click AI video editor actually costs to run, and how SaaS margins   survive per-user API fees - How he runs the ad account, customer service, and product development through   AI agents in Telegram and Slack - Why the harness around the model matters more than the model Subscribe for a new episode every week. Get the newsletter: https://www.scalabilityschool.com/scalability-newsletter Learn more: https://www.scalabilityschool.com Connect with Naveed https://x.com/navuud To connect with Andrew Foxwell send an email [email protected] 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 How to scale a subscription app with Meta ads 00:29 Meet Naveed: Switch Research to Format Finder 02:45 From affiliate marketing to a 45-person performance agency 04:06 Getting banned by Meta and what it exposed 05:45 Why the ecommerce inventory cycle burned him out 08:10 How One Peak turned viral videos into a course business 10:10 Building Format Finder in three weeks with AI 11:50 What the app does, from format quiz to finished cut 13:15 Why the offer is the biggest lever nobody talks about 16:18 How to price a subscription without killing conversion 19:15 The pricing change that moved AOV the most 19:55 Why customers with a need beat customers with a want 22:05 A word from Northbeam 23:20 Why your ad does the targeting, not your audience settings 24:45 Ad account structure: one CBO, no ABO testing 25:31 The creator flywheel: paying users 5% of ad spend 28:35 How the video editor cut churn and unlocked scale 29:35 SaaS margins when every user burns API tokens 32:50 Why the TAM for creator tools is enormous 37:50 Running ads, support, and dev through AI agents 42:00 Where to find Naveed

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 [email protected] 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

How do you build a performance creative team for a DTC brand? Start with the most experienced hire you can afford, a director-level player-coach for nine-figure brands, a senior agency-trained strategist for smaller ones, and let them build the team top-down, using freelancers to fill gaps while full-time roles get approved. Match output goals to headcount, because ad volume is determined by team size, and vet every candidate with a paid assessment that tests both craft and how they use AI. Building a performance creative team starts with hiring the most experienced brain you can afford, a director-level player-coach, then filling in strategists, editors, designers, and a creator manager around them. In this episode, Andrew Foxwell and Brad Ploch sit down with Joanna Wallace, who founded the creative department at HexClad and served as VP of Creative Strategy at Birddogs, to map out exactly who to hire, in what order, what they cost, and how to test them before you commit millions in ad spend to their strategy. We discuss: Why going cheap on your first creative hire is the most expensive mistake in DTC What a creative strategy director actually costs in 2026 (It's not what you think) and why Why your ad volume is determined by your team size, full stop Why agency experience beats brand-side experience for strategist hires How to run paid assessments that expose AI-generated word salad The coordinator role: the smartest entry point into creative strategy Join The Scalability School Newsletter: https://www.scalabilityschool.com/scalability-newsletter Connect with Joanna Wallace: https://www.linkedin.com/in/joannasloamewallace/ Joanna's creative strategist evaluation template: To connect with Andrew Foxwell send an email [email protected] 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. 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! Scalability School is the podcast for DTC media buyers and e-commerce operators who want to scale profitably — hosted by Andrew Foxwell, Brad Ploch, and Zach Stuck. Chapters 00:00 How to build a performance creative team for a DTC brand 02:02 The #1 hiring mistake: going cheap on your first creative hire 03:04 What a creative strategy director costs in 2026 05:06 Player-coach: what the director does in the first six months 09:10 Why ad volume is determined by team size 13:13 The hiring order for seven-figure brands 18:18 Why agency experience beats brand-side experience 21:21 What nine-figure creative teams do differently 25:24 Sharing creative learnings across the whole company 31:27 Where to find great creative strategists 37:36 How to evaluate candidates with paid assessments 41:38 How to break into creative strategy (the coordinator route) 47:43 How to keep a creative team from burning out

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 [email protected] 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