Marketing Operators

“It looks bad in Meta and you’re freaking out, but blended is good.” How far ahead of pace should you be before adding budget on Black Friday? Austin Harrison (CEO, Northbeam) and Andrew Kaszuba (Head of Insights, Northbeam) join Connor MacDonald (CMO, Ridge) and Cody Plofker (Advisor & fmr. CEO, Jones Road Beauty) to break down how ecommerce brands track Black Friday hourly and decide when to push or pull budget. Northbeam’s median brand pulls 42% of Black Friday revenue from earlier touchpoints. When Meta fell short during BFCM 2024, Ridge’s numbers justified pushing AppLovin to about 40% of spend. A strong midday read tempts brands to pour in more, and the extra money can wreck efficiency.Powered By Motion https://9ops.co/motion-runneth Richpanel https://9ops.co/richpanel-mops Proppel https://9ops.co/weareproppel Aftersell https://9ops.co/aftersell-mops Haus https://9ops.co/haus NeonPixel https://9ops.co/neonpixel Operators Portal https://portal.9operators.com/dashboard Operators Newsletter https://9operators.com/

“All of these products eventually are going to come together.” Who calls the shots once Meta’s AI takes over? Nik Ketkar (Director of Product Management, Meta) sits down with Connor MacDonald (CMO, Ridge), Cody Plofker (Advisor & fmr. CEO, Jones Road Beauty), and Connor Rolain (Head of Growth, HexClad) to map Meta’s plan for AI-run media buying. Half of a buyer’s job is still setup, structure, and budget tweaks. Meta wants that half gone, folded into Advantage+ and Ads Creative Studio. Once the AI proposes every move, buyers have to decide how much control to keep. The richer the inputs they feed it, the easier that control is to hand over. Interested in trying Meta's Ads Creative Studio or the other automation products Nik discusses in this episode? Fill out this form: https://9ops.co/meta-adscreativestudio Powered By Motion https://9ops.co/motion-runneth Haus https://www.haus.io/operators NeonPixel https://9ops.co/neonpixel Richpanel https://9ops.co/richpanel-mops Proppel https://www.weareproppel.com/operators Aftersell https://9ops.co/aftersell-mops Operators Portal https://portal.9operators.com/dashboard Operators Newsletter https://9operators.com/

“Two of our winners have entered for free. They never purchased anything from us.”How did Ridge turn a 6-week Tony Hawk partnership into an 8-figure sweepstakes lift? Connor Rolain (Head of Growth, HexClad) and Connor MacDonald (CMO, Ridge) break down how sweepstakes campaigns became eight-figure growth engines for their brands. They cover celebrity deal structures, creative production, and revenue lift across every category. Tony Hawk’s deal doubled Ridge’s TV response rates and pushed partner-page ads to 40% of Meta spend. HexClad gets the same proof differently, running year-over-year holdouts and entry tiers that reward bigger purchases. Both track how sweepstakes shoppers scatter into unexpected categories, forcing a rethink of acquisition strategy. Powered By Motion https://9ops.co/motion-runneth Proppel https://www.weareproppel.com/operators Aftersell https://9ops.co/aftersell-mops Haus https://www.haus.io/operators NeonPixel https://9ops.co/neonpixel Richpanel https://9ops.co/richpanel-mops Operators Portal https://portal.9operators.com/dashboard Operators Newsletter https://9operators.com/

Why do experienced operators still overcorrect on average order value? Varun Kundra (Co-founder, Aftersell by Rokt) joins Connor MacDonald (CMO, Ridge) and Cody Plofker (Advisor & fmr. CEO, Jones Road) to break down the pricing missteps that quietly cost real revenue and the metric worth watching instead. The hosts compare years of pricing tests at Ridge and Jones Road. They cover three ways to bundle for more revenue per order. Varun explains why image heavy upsells beat plain offers, plus a subscription upgrade converting at 20% to 30%. Connor and Varun wrap with a teardown of Winks, the brand behind Operators Build. Powered By Motion https://9ops.co/motion-runneth NeonPixel https://9ops.co/neonpixel Richpanel https://9ops.co/richpanel-mops Proppel https://www.weareproppel.com/operators Aftersell https://9ops.co/aftersell-mops Haus https://www.haus.io/operators Operators Portal https://portal.9operators.com/dashboard Operators Newsletter https://9operators.com/

“All bad tests turn good and all good tests turn bad.” How do you run ecommerce A/B testing faster without sacrificing statistical confidence? Connor MacDonald (CMO, Ridge), Cody Plofker (CEO, Jones Road Beauty), and Connor Rolain (Head of Growth, HexClad) debate when to burn the current site down and rebuild versus grinding out incremental wins one test at a time. The answer depends on what you can afford to get wrong. They cover Ridge’s live theme rebuild, HexClad’s 27% RPU lift from a single collection-page interstitial in Japan, and the case for running four variants instead of two. Cody also breaks down the qualitative research stack that helped Jones Road Beauty string together six consecutive winning tests. 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-podcast Haushttps://www.haus.io/operators Richpanelhttps://9ops.co/richpanel Aftersellhttps://9ops.co/aftersell-mops Operators Newsletterhttps://9operators.com/

“We used to try to win every day. Now we’re willing to sacrifice entire months.” What does it mean to optimize ad spend when there’s no universal answer? Michael Ting (GM of DTC, JAXXON) joins Connor Rolain (Head of Growth, HexClad) and Connor MacDonald (CMO, Ridge) to challenge one of the most common assumptions in ecommerce email marketing and paid media: that there is a single optimized ad spend. There isn’t. The better question is what you’re trying to achieve and over what time horizon. Michael walks through how JAXXON uses cost per email signup to make confident budget decisions, spending aggressively into slow seasons and monetizing that list when it matters most. The conversation also covers decision quality frameworks, doubling AB testing velocity, and how daily performance reporting builds operator instinct over time. 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-podcast Richpanel https://9ops.co/richpanel Aftersellhttps://9ops.co/aftersell-mops Haushttps://www.haus.io/operators Operators Newsletter https://9operators.com/

“We’re not hiring less because of AI. We just expect each hire to be more productive.” Is AI shrinking your marketing team, or just changing who belongs on it? Connor Rolain (Head of Growth, HexClad) and Cody Plofker (CEO, Jones Road Beauty) get into how two of the most operator-driven brands in ecommerce are rethinking their AI marketing team structure heading into the second half of 2026. They cover which roles are compressing, which are expanding, and what it actually looks like to build a leaner growth team that outputs more. Cody breaks down the CRO program he runs with one person that used to require six. Connor explains why HexClad hired more people after building an AI-powered seeding system, not fewer. And both share how they think about headcount requests now, and what they make teams prove before saying yes. 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/4i3bb5 Haushttps://www.haus.io/operators Richpanelhttps://9ops.co/richpanel Operators Newsletterhttps://9operators.com/

“There’s going to be a world where you just tell them your product and your business goals and they do the rest.” What does Meta’s AI push mean for ecommerce brands trying to win on paid social right now? Connor MacDonald (CMO, Ridge), Cody Plofker (CEO, Jones Road Beauty), and Connor Rolain (Head of Growth, HexClad) recorded this episode live at Meta’s Performance Marketing Summit 2026 where they break down everything Meta announced: AI infrastructure to catalog-powered creative and what brands need to do about it immediately. The conversation covers Meta’s shift toward catalog-first ad infrastructure and why clean product data is now table stakes, not a nice-to-have. They dig into how the media buyer role is converging with creative strategy, what a 24-hour full-funnel launch looks like in practice, and why the brands building creator ecosystems today are setting up a major moat for catalog creative tomorrow. Powered By MetaOperators Newsletterhttps://9operators.com/