New Ad Accounts, Organic & Creators: Marketing Operators Hotline

Are you exhausting your audience, or just exhausting your strategy? Connor MacDonald (CMO, Ridge) and Connor Rolain (Head of Growth, HexClad) dig into the mechanics of reaching net-new audiences on Meta, breaking down which lever moves the needle most: creative diversity, signal engineering, or landing page strategy. They also revisit a Ridge case study showing how optimizing for the wrong purchase event quietly cannibalized an entire product category’s growth. The conversation shifts to building a DTC marketing function from scratch, what the first senior hire should look like at a $30M consumable brand with deep retail roots, what to pay them, and how to think about the lifecycle marketing role that follows. They close on a standout YouTube incrementality test result where Amazon captured more than half the revenue lift, and what that pattern reveals about upper-funnel channels and where customers actually convert. Powered By Motion Creative Benchmarks 2026  https://motionapp.com/thumbstop-pulse/creative-benchmarks-2026?utm_campaign=marketing-operators&utm_medium=sponsor&utm_content=creative-benchmarks-2026&utm_source=marketing-operators-podcastAftersellhttps://9ops.co/4i3bb5Haushttps://www.haus.io/operatorsPrescient AI https://www.prescientai.com/operatorsRichpanelhttps://9ops.co/richpanelOperators Newsletterhttps://9operators.com/

Are you exhausting your audience or just exhausting your strategy? Connor MacDonald (CMO, Ridge) and Connor Rolain (Head of Growth, HexClad) dig into the mechanics of reaching net-new audiences on Meta, breaking down which lever moves the needle most: creative diversity, signal engineering, or landing page strategy. They also revisit a Ridge case study showing how optimizing for the wrong purchase event quietly cannibalized an entire product category’s growth.  The conversation shifts to building a DTC marketing function from scratch, what the first senior hire should look like at a $30M consumable brand with deep retail roots, what to pay them, and how to think about the lifecycle marketing role that follows. They close on a standout YouTube incrementality test result where Amazon captured more than half the revenue lift, and what that pattern reveals about upper-funnel channels and where customers actually convert. Powered By Motion Creative Benchmarks 2026 https://motionapp.com/thumbstop-pulse/creative-benchmarks-2026?utm_campaign=marketing-operators&utm_medium=sponsor&utm_content=creative-benchmarks-2026&utm_source=marketing-operators-podcastAftersell https://9ops.co/4i3bb5Haus https://www.haus.io/operatorsPrescient AI https://www.prescientai.com/operatorsRichpanel https://9ops.co/richpanelOperators Newsletter https://9operators.com/

This episode is brought to you by AppLovin. Get access to the Operators channel expansion playbook, online masterclass, and up to $5k in ad credits here: https://www.9operators.com/paid-growth Or, skip the waitlist and launch your AppLovin ads today with our Operators-exclusive link: https://axon.ai/en/9operators “Growth can actually kill a business that’s not prepared for it.” Bryan Cano (fmr. Head of Marketing, True Classic) joins Connor MacDonald (CMO, Ridge) and Connor Rolain (Head of Growth, HexClad) for a conversation that spans the full arc of his career. Bryan breaks down the stair-stepping method for scaling without blowing up operations, what it looks like to rebuild a marketing org ahead of Black Friday, and how True Classic became one of the earliest brands to scale AppLovin to $100K per day in spend. Still an advisor to True Classic, Bryan also shares what he’s building next — an AI-first brand consolidator with a founding team he describes as an executive AI stack + a first product just weeks away. 

It’s a MOps Hotline special episode! Connor MacDonald (CMO, Ridge), Cody Plofker (CEO, Jones Road Beauty), and Connor Rolain (Head of Growth, HexClad) answer your most pressing questions. Especially how to get started. Connor MacDonald shares what he’s learning in real time from launching a new supplement company from scratch — no Ridge halo, no shortcuts. The trio breaks down why organic distribution has become the non-negotiable foundation before touching paid, and how to think about scaling a Meta account from $500 a day to $1,000 and beyond. They also dig into the evolution from demand capture to demand creation, how to read the signals in your ad account, and why onsite CRO (conversion rate optimization) might be the most underrated lever in your whole growth stack. Powered By Motion Creative Benchmarks 2026 https://motionapp.com/thumbstop-pulse/creative-benchmarks-2026?utm_campaign=marketing-operators&utm_medium=sponsor&utm_content=creative-benchmarks-2026&utm_source=marketing-operators-podcastPrescient AI https://www.prescientai.com/operatorsRichpanel https://9ops.co/richpanelAftersell https://9ops.co/4i3bb5Rivo https://www.rivo.io/operatorsOperators Newsletter https://9operators.com/

What if the reason your channel expansion isn’t working has nothing to do with the channel? Connor MacDonald (CMO, Ridge), Cody Plofker (CEO, Jones Road Beauty), and Connor Rolain (Head of Growth, HexClad) break down what drives channel expansion decisions. They use the David Protein bar lawsuit as a jumping-off point to discuss bold brand marketing and the frameworks behind how DTC brands scale beyond Meta. The hosts dig into why thinking about customers acquired — not revenue generated — changes how you sequence channel investment. They debate the biggest mistakes they’ve each made with channel timing and what they’d do differently if they were launching a brand today. The conversation gets specific about TikTok Shop affiliate structures, how organic content creation seeds better paid performance, and why baseball on linear TV is offering CPMs that rival platforms can’t touch right now. Powered By Motion Creative Benchmarks 2026 https://motionapp.com/thumbstop-pulse/creative-benchmarks-2026?utm_campaign=marketing-operators&utm_medium=sponsor&utm_content=creative-benchmarks-2026&utm_source=marketing-operators-podcastRichpanel https://9ops.co/richpanelAftersell https://9ops.co/4i3bb5Haus https://www.haus.io/operatorsPrescient AI https://www.prescientai.com/operatorsOperators Newsletter https://9operators.com/

“The market will tell you your hero — you can’t decide it.” How do you build a brand after you've seen the inside of 30 others? Connor Rolain and Cody Plofker sit down with Ari Murray, Chief Digital Officer at Salt & Stone, who spent four and a half years as Chief Growth Officer at Sharma Brands before going in-house. They dig into what it takes to lead growth for a single brand after years of running it for dozens at once. You’ll learn when to hire an agency versus build in-house, and why the answer changes as a brand matures. Ari shares how Salt & Stone approaches acquisition without discounting, why discovery sets are central to their DTC funnel, and how she thinks about first-order AOV in a scent-driven category where customers can't smell the product before they buy.  They also discuss session growth as a daily obsession, the real cost of dabbling in new channels without enough commitment, and why the line between brand and performance is too often drawn in the wrong place.  Powered ByMotion Creative Benchmarks 2026https://motionapp.com/thumbstop-pulse/creative-benchmarks-2026?utm_campaign=marketing-operators&utm_medium=sponsor&utm_content=creative-benchmarks-2026&utm_source=marketing-operators-podcastAftersell https://9ops.co/4i3bb5Rivohttps://www.rivo.io/operatorsPrescient AI https://www.prescientai.com/operatorsRichpanel https://9ops.co/richpanelOperators Newsletter https://9operators.com/

Are you making decisions based on data that proves causality or just correlation? Connor Rolain (Head of Growth, HexClad), Connor MacDonald (CMO, Ridge), and Cody Plofker (CEO, Jones Road Beauty) dig into what it means to build a truly incrementality-first marketing organization. They break down how to string together consecutive channel tests — using each result to build the next hypothesis rather than testing in isolation. They share real examples from their own accounts, including how a 20% budget shift to brand video drove a 40% lift in incremental results, why TikTok Shop is proving to reach a new audience for HexClad, and how Jones Road diagnosed and rebuilt a struggling Meta account from first principles. The conversation also tackles the nuance of measuring upper-funnel channels like CTV and YouTube, when directional reads are enough, and how to build a culture where your team learns to think incrementally without being told to. Powered ByMotion Creative Benchmarks 2026 https://motionapp.com/thumbstop-pulse/creative-benchmarks-2026?utm_campaign=marketing-operators&utm_medium=sponsorHaushttps://www.haus.io/operatorsPrescient AI https://www.prescientai.com/operatorsRichpanel https://9ops.co/richpanelAftersell https://9ops.co/4i3bb5Operators Newsletter https://9operators.com/

Is media buying dead or just evolving? Cody Plofker, Connor MacDonald, and Connor Rolain unpack Meta’s integration of Manus AI into Ads Manager and explore what it signals for the future of paid growth. The hosts discuss whether AI-driven automation is making traditional media buying obsolete and what this shift could mean for ecommerce teams navigating an increasingly agent-led landscape. The squad also covers how they’re already applying AI inside their brands, from campaign execution to CRO workflows + internal tooling — evolving growth roles, cross-channel decision-making, and how teams are rethinking structure in response to more capable AI systems. Powered By Motion Creative Strategy Bootcamp https://motionapp.com/2026-creative-strategy-bootcamp-paid?utm_source=marketing-operators-podcast&utm_medium=sponsor&utm_campaign=marketing-operators&utm_content=creative-strategy-bootcamp-2026Richpanel https://9ops.co/richpanelAftersell https://9ops.co/4i3bb5Rivo https://www.rivo.io/operatorsPrescient AI https://www.prescientai.com/operatorsOperators Newsletter https://9operators.com/

Mina Zandbar (VP of Global eCommerce & Digital Growth at Mattel) and Avi Moskowitz (Co-Founder & CEO) of PrettyDamnQuick, join hosts Connor MacDonald + Cody Plofker to explore ecommerce growth from two very different vantage points — one inside an 80-year-old, multi-billion dollar toy company; the other, building the infrastructure that helps brands stop leaking revenue at checkout. Together, they reveal how your business can better use first-party data, AI, and smarter checkout experiences to improve customer trust and sell more. Avi explains how optimizing logistics and personalization inside checkout unlocks profit revenue, while Mina shares how Mattel builds agile, data-driven teams and connects directly with its global community of customers and collectors. The end result? A top-to-bottom analysis of your entire customer journey … to scale faster. PrettyDamnQuick https://prettydamnquick.com/?utm_source=partnerships&utm_medium=podcast&utm_campaign=theoperators&utm_term=podnotesTry Checkout Index https://checkoutindex.prettydamnquick.com/?utm_source=partnerships&utm_medium=podcast&utm_campaign=theoperators&utm_term=podnotesPowered By Motion Creative Strategy Bootcamp https://motionapp.com/2026-creative-strategy-bootcamp-paid?utm_campaign=marketing-operators&utm_medium=sponsor&utm_content=creative-strategy-bootcamp-2026&utm_source=marketing-operators-podcast Haus https://www.haus.io/operators Prescient AI https://www.prescientai.com/operators Richpanel https://9ops.co/richpanel Aftersell https://9ops.co/4i3bb5 Operators Newsletter https://9operators.com/

Are your new product launches driving incremental revenue or just shifting money around? Connor Rolain, Head of Growth at HexClad, and Connor MacDonald, CMO at Ridge, dig into one of the most under-discussed challenges in DTC: how and when to introduce new products into your paid acquisition channels. From HexClad’s cocktail shaker launch to Ridge’s tattoo-inspired wallet designs, they break down real decisions they’re making right now. Geo lift tests, channel holdouts, MER vs. ad-level performance, blended business unit analysis, and cross-category buying. The conversation centers on operationalizing category expansion in paid — building frameworks for when to scale, when to hold, and how to make smarter allocation decisions across categories.Powered By:Motion Creative Strategy Bootcamphttps://motionapp.com/2026-creative-strategy-bootcamp-paid?utm_campaign=marketing-operators&utm_medium=sponsor&utm_content=creative-strategy-bootcamp-2026&utm_source=marketing-operators-podcastPrescient AIhttps://www.prescientai.com/operatorsRichpanelhttps://9ops.co/richpanelAftersellhttps://9ops.co/4i3bb5Haushttps://www.haus.io/operatorsOperators Newsletterhttps://9operators.com/