Marketing Operators

“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 lean on repeat buyers. 

Portland Leather Goods launches new SKUs every Tuesday and Thursday, and its list buys them up. Ridge works harder for a second sale, since its wallet is guaranteed for life. So each launch leans on ads. One bad order can leave 22K units on the shelf. 

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Aftersell 

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Haus 

https://9ops.co/haus 

NeonPixel 

https://9ops.co/neonpixel 

Richpanel 

https://9ops.co/richpanel-mops 

Operators Portal 

https://portal.9operators.com/dashboard 

Operators Newsletter 

https://9operators.com/ 

“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.

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Richpanel 

https://9ops.co/richpanel-mops 

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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/ 

“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. 

Rising CPMs don’t always mean your last change backfired. Meta’s ad prices reflect supply and demand, while Andromeda lets its delivery system consider more ads for each impression. As automation improves, the marketer’s job shifts toward defining what a valuable outcome looks like, supplying reliable data, and building diverse creative that helps Meta find the right match. 

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NeonPixel 

https://9ops.co/neonpixel 

Haus 

https://www.haus.io/operators 

Richpanel 

https://9ops.co/richpanel-mops 

Aftersell 

https://9ops.co/aftersell-mops 

Proppel 

https://www.weareproppel.com/operators 

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

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https://www.haus.io/operators 

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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/ 

“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, landers, offers, and upsells. 

Winks has a premium product, yet customers couldn’t see why it was worth the price. HexClad earns that trust before the click, with Japanese creators and a bestseller hook. The weeks-old brand has to build the same trust with a fraction of the proof. 

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https://9ops.co/aftersell-mops 

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https://www.haus.io/operators 

NeonPixel 

https://9ops.co/neonpixel 

Richpanel 

https://9ops.co/richpanel-mops 

Proppel 

https://www.weareproppel.com/operators 

Operators Portal 

https://portal.9operators.com/dashboard

Operators Newsletter 

https://9operators.com/ 

https://x.com/M__Operators 

https://www.instagram.com/marketingoperators/

“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. 

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https://www.weareproppel.com/operators 

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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/ 

“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 team. (2) Earning credibility when nobody knows the brand. (3) Finding a message that gets clicks. (4) Testing offers before the data is conclusive. (5) Making subscription economics work. (6) Dealing with high ad costs. Cody shares what’s happening at Winks just weeks after launch; Connor explains what Ridge learned from six months of building Gut Culture.

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https://9ops.co/aftersell-mops 

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https://www.haus.io/operators 

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https://9ops.co/neonpixel 

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. 

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https://www.haus.io/operators 

Operators Portal 

https://portal.9operators.com/dashboard 

Operators Newsletter 

https://9operators.com/ 

“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 breaking point. 

Postscript is building unified profiles instead of fragmented SMS data. That shift promises holdout testing and customer lifetime value tracking. RCS already shows early lift in live tests. Meanwhile TikTok Shop’s incentive structure is pushing affiliates toward burnout. 

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https://9ops.co/aftersell-mops 

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https://www.haus.io/operators 

Operators Portal 

https://portal.9operators.com/dashboard 

Operators Newsletter 

https://9operators.com/ 

“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 opening case study, spending big on creator activations without measuring returns. The hosts counter with their own tactics, mixing steep weekend deal drops with full brand rebuilds between sales. The riskiest move this season turns out to be a discount that costs a brand its most loyal customers. Cody dives into Winks, a fresh sleep brand he and four other 9-figure executives are building from the ground up, and introduces Operators Build, the show capturing the entire journey from scratch.

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Proppel 

https://www.weareproppel.com/operators 

Aftersell 

https://9ops.co/aftersell-mops 

Operators Portal 

https://portal.9operators.com/dashboard 

Operators Newsletter 

https://9operators.com/ 

Operators Build 

https://9ops.co/ops-build-ytplaylist

Winks 

https://getwinks.com/