Marketing Operators

“If you’re a marketer and you can’t review data, you’re cooked.”  Can AI run most of your marketing work while you keep the creative edge?  Alysha Boehm (Creative Strategy Lead, Motion), Cody Plofker (Advisor & fmr. CEO, Jones Road Beauty), and Connor Rolain (Head of Growth, HexClad) show how AI now edits their ads, builds their landers, and analyzes their data. As the technical work fades awa...

“Returning customer revenue is where all the profit is made.”  Can every DTC brand sell new products to existing customers, or does the category decide?  MacCoy Merkley (CMO, Portland Leather Goods), Connor MacDonald (CMO, Ridge), and Cody Plofker (Advisor & fmr. CEO, Jones Road Beauty) unpack why new products sold to existing customers drive ecommerce profit, and why some categories can’t lea...

“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...

“With Andromeda, we can look at the entire universe.”  What should marketers focus on now that Meta’s ad algorithm handles targeting?  Sukhesh Miryala (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 open up how Meta picks a winner for every impression.  Risi...

“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, structur...

“We weren’t doing a good job showing the value.”  Where does a new brand find trust when it can’t claim a bestseller like HexClad?  Connor MacDonald (CMO, Ridge), Cody Plofker (Advisor & fmr. CEO, Jones Road Beauty), and Connor Rolain (Head of Growth, HexClad) compare a scaled HexClad funnel with one from the weeks-old Winks. Step by step, they trace how each one builds trust across ads, lande...

“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 reve...

“There’s so much that I took for granted. It’s such a different playbook.” What happens when two operators who’ve helped build nine-figure brands start again at zero? Connor MacDonald (CMO, Ridge) and Cody Plofker (advisor and former CEO, Jones Road) compare notes on two new launches: Ridge’s Gut Culture and Cody’s Winks. They get into six hard lessons from the early days. (1) Building with a lean...

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...

“We just had a hundred thousand people buy in the last 60 days.”  What does the future of retention marketing actually look like by 2027?  Connor MacDonald (CMO, Ridge) and Connor Rolain (Head of Growth, HexClad) unpack what Postscript’s AI memories mean for retention marketing’s future. They map out a 2027 playbook built on personalized experiences, even as TikTok Shop’s creator economy hits a br...

“Don’t let perfect measurement get in the way of good marketing”  How do Ridge, HexClad and Jones Road each structure Black Friday, Cyber offers differently?  Connor MacDonald (CMO, Ridge), Cody Plofker (CEO, Jones Road Beauty), and Connor Rolain (Head of Growth, HexClad) share how holiday marketing campaigns pull their ecommerce brands in completely different directions.  Shark Ninja becomes the...

“It is so incredibly easy to not drive incremental results the week of Black Friday.” Connor MacDonald (CMO, Ridge), Cody Plofker (Advisor & fmr. CEO, Jones Road), and Connor Rolain (Head of Growth, HexClad) share how they are approaching Q4 planning. Before scaling Black Friday, Cyber Monday spend, both HexClad and Ridge test incrementality with real control groups. That same discipline shape...

What changes when a single marketer creates as much value as an entire department?  Reza Khadjavi (Founder & CEO, Motion) joins Connor MacDonald (CMO, Ridge) and Cody Plofker (Advisor & fmr. CEO, Jones Road) to explain why he built Runneth, an AI agent meant to eventually replace Motion’s own product. He walks through the context engineering behind that shift and what it means for marketer...

How much can filtering a collection page actually lift average order value? What about cart, checkout, and post-purchase? Varun Kundra (Co-founder, Aftersell) joins Connor MacDonald (CMO, Ridge) and Connor Rolain (Head of Growth, HexClad) to unpack how ecommerce brands raise AOV. Four levers make that possible: collection page tests, product bundles, post purchase upsells, and cross brand advertis...

“I just don’t hear a lot of good reasons why this can’t be automated”.  Can an algorithm allocate ad budget better than a human media buyer?  Olivia Kory (CMO & Strategy Officer, Haus) joins Connor MacDonald (CMO, Ridge) and Connor Rolain (Head of Growth, HexClad) to unpack incrementality testing, marketing mix modeling, and early agentic media buying. Geo lift holdouts and attribution debiasi...

“It was the most fun role I think I’ll ever do”.  How do visionary founders build teams to protect their time for big ideas?  Katie Cirulli (Chief Emerging Brands Officer & fmr. President, Grüns) joins Connor Rolain (Head of Growth, HexClad) and Cody Plofker (Advisor & fmr. CEO, Jones Road). She joined Grüns as employee four and rose from Chief of Staff to her current role. Before that, sh...

“Borrow cultural equity executed with real partnership compounds faster than anything built in-house.”  What happens when a legacy brand like Lexus stops buying reach and starts buying culture?  Connor MacDonald (CMO, Ridge), Cody Plofker (CEO, Jones Road Beauty), and Connor Rolain (Head of Growth, HexClad) trace how Lexus is using Colin and Samir to reach an audience Lexus already has. One idea d...

“The new infomercial is TikTok shop.”  Why did Ridge see 88% of its GMV Max lift happen outside of TikTok?  Cody Plofker (CEO, Jones Road Beauty), Connor Rolain (Head of Growth, HexClad), and Connor MacDonald (CMO, Ridge) sit down to unpack how their brands are building profitable TikTok shop affiliate programs. The conversation opens with Cody’s decision to step down as CEO of Jones Road.  Connor...

“I don’t think our ads are any better.”  Why are Meta click-through rates rising while conversion rates keep falling?  Connor MacDonald (CMO, Ridge), Cody Plofker (CEO, Jones Road Beauty), and Connor Rolain (Head of Growth, HexClad) unpack why Meta ad performance has quietly shifted across ecommerce accounts. They break down Ridge’s new chains launch and the merchandising lessons behind it, and de...

“She has built an amazing system and an amazing flywheel.” What separates a performance creative director worth hiring from one who just manages a content calendar?  Connor MacDonald (CMO, Ridge) and Connor Rolain (Head of Growth, HexClad) dig into what it takes to hire a director of performance creative today, why the creative strategist role has split into two distinct skill sets, and how AI age...

“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...

“It’s not a test. It’s diversity for the Meta algorithm.”  Can running more landing pages hurt your ability to make decisions?  Connor MacDonald (CMO, Ridge) and Cody Plofker (CEO, Jones Road Beauty) dig into landing page optimization strategy, conversion rate optimization for Meta ads, and when structured testing is the wrong tool entirely. They cover what Jones Road learned from overdeveloping p...

“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 spen...

“The digital deliverables have outpaced production company knowledge.” How do you build a repeatable content creation process without hiring a full agency? Connor MacDonald (CMO, Ridge), Cody Plofker (CEO, Jones Road Beauty), and Connor Rolain (Head of Growth, HexClad) break down how they approach content production across every budget level; ranging from $50k brand shoot days to $100 iPhone clips...

“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.  The...