Frederick Rode, a German AI consultant transitioning from creative strategy to full-scale agency AI implementation, joins Andrew and Thomas for a detailed breakdown of the systems he's actually running. The episode opens with his Claude research agent, a no-code Claude skill wired to Foreplay (for competitor ad library scraping) and Firecrawl (for web scraping) that outputs a 10-page brand document for agency teams to review first thing when they arrive to the office. From there the conversation covers automated ad performance reporting, and the "easier version" of that same pipeline that listners can implement right away. Thomas then shares that he currently has six Mac Minis running AI media buying for 10 of his clients (still monitored by a team but working). Freddie rounds out the episode by walking through a multi-agent CRO landing page system he built in one afternoon with Claude Code, and why splitting one big agent into three specialized ones (copy, layout, CRO) produces dramatically better output. The episode closes with a candid conversation about AI adoption: agencies are excited, not scared, and the ones moving fastest are freeing employees from execution work so they can focus on analysis and strategy. Key Takeaways:

• How connecting to Foreplay's MCP server via Claude is changing the way brands can analyze their competitors' ads
• Why Freddie skips local file storage and auto-upload all research directly to Supabase.
• The "easy version" of automated ad performance reporting, and how listeners can build this without needing direct Meta API access.
• How Railway is turning a weekly Slack performance report into a $5/month automated system for agencies
• The ClickUp status trigger that automatically checks ad creative for grammar errors before they ever go live
• How to build a multi-agent CRO landing page system in an afternoon with Claude Code, and why three specialized agents outperform a single all-in-one agent every time

• Claude (Anthropic) — https://claude.ai (core model; used for skills, research agent, all downstream workflows)
• Claude Code — https://claude.ai/code (used to build CRO landing page agent and grammar review automation)
• Foreplay — https://foreplay.co (save and scrape Facebook ad library; one-click MCP server connection to Claude; competitor ad transcripts, video downloads, run duration)
• Firecrawl — https://www.firecrawl.dev (web scraping via MCP; extracts brand pages, Trustpilot reviews, competitor sites)
• Gemini (Google) — https://gemini.google.com (visual analysis of competitor ad videos via MCP; analyzes hooks, angles, text overlay, first 3 seconds)
• Supabase — https://supabase.com (database for storing personas, ad performance data, copies, headlines; official Claude MCP integration)
• Meta API — https://developers.facebook.com/docs/marketing-apis/ (official ad account data: spend, hook rate, ad-level performance)
• Apify — https://apify.com (ad scraping tool with official Meta ad scraper; receives post links from 2-Minute Reports and downloads asset URLs, videos, images)
• 2-Minute Reports — https://www.2minutereports.com (Google Sheets-based ad reporting, similar to Supermetrics; scheduled auto-reports; no Meta API setup required)
• Frame.io (Frame) — https://frame.io (creative review platform; API used to automate grammar/copy QC on ads the moment they hit "ready for review" in ClickUp)
• ClickUp — https://clickup.com (project management; task status change to "ready for review" triggers Frame API automation)
• Railway — https://railway.app (~$5/month; connects GitHub + runs scheduled script to deliver Slack performance reports automatically each week)
• North Beam — https://www.northbeam.io (MTA attribution tool; discussed as a potential data cross-reference source alongside Meta reporting; has an API)
• Motion / Runneth — https://motionapp.com (sponsor; AI agent inside Motion's creative analytics platform, powered by Claude, trained on $14B in ad spend)
• Codex (OpenAI) — https://platform.openai.com/codex (coding AI; mentioned as an alternative Freddie is exploring alongside Claude)

To connect with Freddy DM him here https://x.com/freddyrode3

To connect with Andrew Foxwell reach him here [email protected]

To connect with Will Sartorious DM him here https://x.com/will_sartorius

To Connect mith Thomas Moen DM him here https://x.com/thomasmoen

To learn more about Foxwell Founders and conversations like this one, go here: www.foxwellfounders.com

Florian Litterst, German paid social agency owner since 2012, joins the show to break down exactly how his team has wired AI into every corner of their operation. The conversation gets specific fast, from a Claude-powered agent that scrapes competitor ads from Meta's EU ad library and surfaces untested angles every 30 days, to a another that mines Trustpilot, TrustShops, and Amazon competitor reviews for creative ammunition. Florian walks through his image generation workflow using krea.ai, why he now runs AI-ready photo shoots so every product can be "prompted into any situation," and how AI-generated B-roll is solving the impossible shot problem (think: socks on a runner's feet filmed from behind). The episode closes with a forward-looking debate on where AI is taking agencies from execution focused shops toward data-connected consultancies and a unanimous take that experienced human taste is the one thing AI still can't replace. Key Takeaways

• What a real competitive intelligence AI agent looks like and how you can build one using Meta's ad library, Airtable, APFI, and Claude.
• Why pulling competitor negative reviews from these places are one of the most underrated sources for ad angle discovery.
• How the EU's ad transparency rule actually gives European agencies a data advantage over US-based media buyers.
• Why investing in "AI-ready photo shoot" is cheaper than repeatedly shooting new product content everytime
• When AI-generated video becomes a liability instead of an asset
• How this one site is being used to create scalable image and video workflows.
• Why creative iterations are losing their value in Meta's algorithm, and what agencies should be doing with their production time instead.

• ChatGPT (Deep Research) — https://chat.openai.com
• Claude (Anthropic) — https://claude.ai
• Airtable — https://airtable.com
• APFI — API wrapper/scraping tool (referenced as tool for pulling ad library and review data via API; search "APFI API tool")
• OpenAI Whisper — https://openai.com/research/whisper (used for video transcription)
• krea.ai — https://www.krea.ai (image and video generation platform; wrapper for Nano Banana, Sea Dance/C-Dance, and other models)
• Nano Banana (Google) — Google's image generation model, accessible via krea.ai and Google Flow
• Google Drive — https://drive.google.com
• Slack — https://slack.com
• Trustpilot — https://www.trustpilot.com
• TrustShops — https://www.trustedshops.com
• Amazon (reviews) — https://www.amazon.com
• Supabase — https://supabase.com (mentioned as alternative to Airtable, not used by Florian)
• Netlify — https://netlify.com (briefly mentioned in context of landing page creation)

To learn more about Florian and his team at Ads Venture go here: adsventure.de

Co-host Will Sartorius chats with Andrew on a wide-ranging episode that opens with a hot-take roundup on the latest model drops (Claude Opus 4.8, Google Omni (Veo 3.4)), and why Google Flow's $200/month subscription might be the most slept-on deal in AI right now. Will then shifts gears and dives into his full operational playbook. He breaks down how his agency uses AI to close more enterprise deals (a proposal workflow that litterally turns a sales call recording into 14 spec ads, a gap analysis, and a competitor breakdown that's delivered same day). He then outlines the three-piece framework his team uses to generate better creative: gap analysis, time series analysis, and social listening. Andrew and will also get real about the messy details of AI and how tool costs can add-up fast, the danger of automating for automation's sake, and how to actually structure AI governance inside an agency. This episode closes with a four-bucket framework for how agencies and D2C brands should be thinking about AI as they move through 2026 and beyond. Key Takeaways

• The same-day proposal workflow Will is using to close enterprise deals faster and how you can too.
• Why the gap analysis the first piece of the creative puzzle and what Will's AI tool actually shows you about your ad account.
• What a time series analysis is for ad creative and how you can use the Meta API to tag every ad you've ever run by persona, angle, format, and emotion.
• How social listening on these platforms will change the ads you prioritize.
• How Google Flow's $200/month subscription actually stacks up vs. paying per-generation on SeaDance for high-volume video work.
• Why Will decided to go back to having a human editor QC every AI-generated static before it goes live.
• The TRUE cost of "playing around" with AI, and how to audit if your AI projects are actually generating revenue versus just burning tokens.
• How the smartest agencies thinking about AI governance and what every agency needs to build out now

• Claude Opus 4.8 / Claude Sonnet 4.6 (Anthropic) — https://claude.ai (used for copywriting agents, tagging historical ads, and proposal workflows)
• Claude Code — https://claude.ai/code (used for proposals, landing pages, and creative workflows)
• Google Omni / Veo 3 (Google) — https://deepmind.google/technologies/veo/ (video generation model)
• Google Flow — https://flow.google/ ($200/month subscription unlocking Nano Banana, Veo 3.1, Veo 3.2, Omni)
• Nano Banana (Google) — Google's image generation model, accessible via Google Flow
• C-Dance / Sea Dance (ByteDance) — Video generation model; comparable to Google Omni but priced per generation
• GPT-4o Image Generation (OpenAI) — https://openai.com (referred to as "GPT-2" for image/static generation in context)
• Read.ai — https://www.read.ai (AI meeting recording and transcription)
• Granola — https://www.granola.so (AI meeting notes; mentioned as comparable to Read.ai)
• 11 Labs (ElevenLabs) — https://elevenlabs.io (voice AI; briefly mentioned)
• Meta API — https://developers.facebook.com/docs/marketing-apis/ (used to pull historical ad data)
• adlib.getskipper.ai — https://adlib.getskipper.ai (Will's free gap analysis tool — enter your brand, get persona/angle/emotion gaps)
• Skipper — Will's product (social listening and creative intelligence platform; referenced throughout)
• NFL.ai API — Used for generating static ad images directly into Claude Code workflow
• Higgsfield — https://higgsfield.ai (AI video platform; mentioned as an alternative to Google Flow)
• file.ai — Referenced as a platform team uses for video and static generation
• Vercel — https://vercel.com (used for spinning up landing pages quickly)
• GitHub — https://github.com (used in landing page/CRO workflow)
• HQ — Project management tool for AI workflows (referenced as a way to organize Claude Code projects)
• Codex (OpenAI) — https://platform.openai.com/docs/guides/code (mentioned as an alternative coding AI)

To connect with Andrew Foxwell reach him here [email protected]

To connect with Will Sartorious DM him here https://x.com/will_sartorius

To Connect mith Thomas Moen DM him here https://x.com/thomasmoen

To learn more about Foxwell Founders and conversations like this one, go here: www.foxwellfounders.com

This episode features Cody Plofker, of Jones Road Beauty, and one of the most talked-about voices in the DTC/e-commerce space. The conversation covers how Cody has turned Claude into a full-stack CRO and conversion engine, going 5-for-5 (as he puts it) on winning A/B tests with almost 10% CVR lifts each.

Cody also gets into his end-to-end workflow and how it all starts with his "customer intelligence" markdown file fed by live MCPs ( a combination of Junip reviews, RichPanel CX tickets, OuterSignal, ListenLabs, GA4, Heatmap API). He also covers how he built Jones Road's entire design system inside a GitHub markdown file so he can now one-shot landing pages at an 80% quality rate in a single session.

Andrew and Will dig in with the harder questions from why human taste still matters, why QC agents alone won't save you and how to decide whether to build a landing page first or an ad first, The episode closes on KPIs and how Cody is raising output expectations across the board and tying AI utilization directly into performance evaluations. Key Takeaways:

• How a CRO intelligence process that's pulled from customer reviews, support tickets, surveys, heatmaps, and GA4 can change the quality of your test hypotheses.
• What you're actually leaving on the table when relying on QC agents to catch everything in your AI output.
• Why you should be building your ads & landing pages from a single brief.
• How your team can go from idea to live within 24 hours to get more testing cycles and improve your overall funnel launch standard.
• How to use this analysis to surface winning persona/angle/format combinations you quietly turned off a year ago.
• Understanding how much of your competitive moat actually lives in the quality of data and documentation you've fed into your AI system.
• When you tell your team AI adoption is mandatory and the approach that creates real behavior change.
• What "best in class" output actually looks like now that AI has raised the ceiling on what a single operator can produce.

Tangible Links

• JunipProduct: reviews platform with MCP filejunip.co
• RichPanel: AI-powered ecommerce CX helpdesk - richpanel.com
• OuterSignal: Customer intelligence and data enrichment - outersignal.com
• ListenLabs: AI-moderated customer interviews and surveys - listenlabs.ai
• Typeform: Survey tool - typeform.com
• Granola: AI meeting notes tool - granola.ai
• GitHub: Code repository - github.com
• Google Trends: Trend monitoring - trends.google.com
• Reddit: Community platform - Reddit.com
• ClickUp: Project management software - clickup.com
• Tempo: Recently launched tool mentioned as an example of commoditized software in the design/build space - WithTempo.Ai

To learn more about Cody Plofker and his team at Jones Road Beauty go here: https://x.com/codyplof https://www.jonesroadbeauty.com/

This episode features Torii Rowe, a Foxwell Founders member and agency operator who has quietly built a near-fully automated media buying operating system using AI. Tori dives in on how he uses Claude to ingest over 9 billion rows of client data to surface creative and media buying insights no human could pull manually. He walks through standardized naming conventions as a prerequisite for querying data across all clients, along with practical advice on where media buyers should spend their time, and the 1 tool all agency owners should be using to talk through their business problems with AI before building anything. Key Takeaways

• How to connect an AI model directly to your data warehouse to unlock insights without writing SQL.
• What a true AI operating system for a 30+ clients actually look like
• Why this one metric is a better early indicator of creative performance than click-through rate or CPM.
• How standardizing their naming conventions unlocked a cross-client creative analysis that no analytics platform currently offers out of the box.
• The step-by-step stack Tori uses to go from client call data, to creative brief, to AI-generated ad.
• The 1 thing that Weavy (Figma Weave) actually does that other AI image tools cannot.
• When to bring in real engineers versus continuing to build with Claude Code yourself.
• How to prevent analysis paralysis when you have access to massive amounts of data and insights

Tangible Links:

• Snowflake: Data warehouse that has its own Cortex AI model built in and a native MCP snowflake.com ↗
• Airbyte: Data pipeline tool used to pull in data from all paid media platforms, Klaviyo, Attentive, and post-purchase surveys airbyte.com ↗
• Weavy / Figma Weave: Node-based AI image generation pipeline tool. weave.figma.com ↗
• Kai.ai: AI image generation tool used in tandem with Figma for ad creative iteration. kai.ai ↗
• Gemini (Google): Used for video tagging because it can watch and analyze video content gemini.google.com ↗
• Klaviyo + Attentive: Email and SMS platforms klaviyo.com ↗
• WISPR Flow: Voice-to-AI tool wispr.ai ↗

To learn more about Torii Rowe and his team At DREAM Labs Agency head here: https://dreamlabsagency.com/ Https://x.com/ToriiRowe

To Connect With Andrew Foxwell reach him here [email protected]

To connect with Will Sartorious DM Him Here https://x.com/will_sartorius

To Connect With Thomas Moen DM him Here https://x.com/thomasmoen

To learn More about The Foxwell Founders Community and the conversations, like this one being had go here: www.foxwellfounders.com

Andrew Foxwell & Will Sartorious open with a quick roundup of what's new in AI before diving into the main interview. They cover GPT-4o's image generation model beating Gemini in a 15-ad cookoff, a new Alibaba animation model called Happy Horse for animating static ads, Claude's new design tool, a Canva feature that separates layers on AI-generated ads for editing, and a joint venture between Anthropic, Blackstone, and Goldman Sachs that signals a shift toward AI-augmented service businesses.

The interview with Grant Hushek focuses on practical AI infrastructure for teams. Grant is an AI consultant specializing in education, adoption, and implementation. The bulk of the conversation covers skill files and markdown files, what they are, how to build them, how to share them across teams, and how to iterate on them. Grant explains how he connected Fathom (his note-taker) to HubSpot to auto-update CRM records every two hours, and he shares his three-iteration framework for building high-quality skill files. The episode wraps with a debate on Cowork vs. Claude Code and a practical screen-share walkthrough Grant does live on the call.

Key Takeaways

• Why this one file type is the single most important building block for getting repeatable, high-quality AI output in your business.
• Why you need to be sharing AI skill files with your team so that everyone produces the same level of output.
• The first four markdown files every company should create when getting started with Claude.
• Why should you be talking to Claude instead of typing when building your "About Me" and voice & tone files.
• How this three-iteration framework turns a bad first skill file into one you'd actually be proud to use every day.
• The real difference between Cowork and Claude Code, and the one that is actually right for your team.
• The Process Grant used to automatically update every CRM contact record after every call.
• Why giving Claude a PDF template tanks the quality of the output it produces and the file type you should use instead.

Tangible Links from the Show:

• GPT-4o (GPT Image Gen / "GPT2") - Image generation model https://openai.com/chatgpt
• Happy Horse (Alibaba)Animates static AI-generated ads https://github.com/ali-vilab/MAGI-1
• Seed Dance (TikTok)Previous go-to for ad animation https://seedance.tiktok.com
• Claude / Claude DesignUsed to build a new website over a weekend; Claude Design mentioned for one-off projectshttps://claude.ai
• Canva New layer-separation feature for AI-generated ads allows element editing https://canva.com
• Fathom AI note-taker connected to HubSpot to auto-update CRM records every two hours https://fathom.video
• HubSpot CRM platform that receives Fathom transcript data via automationhttps://hubspot.com
• Whisper Flow Voice-to-text tool recommended for capturing voice & tone authentically when building markdown fileshttps://whisperflow.app
• Vercel Deployment platform for apps built with Claude Codehttps://vercel.com
• GitHub Used alongside Claude Code for spinning up landing pages https://github.com
• Notion / ClickUp https://notion.so / https://clickup.com

To learn more about Grant and his team At Grant Bot head here https://x.com/GrantHushek grantbot.co

To Connect With Andrew Foxwell reach him here [email protected]

To connect with Will Sartorious DM Him Here https://x.com/will_sartorius

To Connect With Thomas Moen DM him Here https://x.com/thomasmoen

To learn More about The Foxwell Founders Community and the converstations, like this one being had go here: www.foxwellfounders.com

Welcome to the AI DTC WTF Podcast.