The Writers Room

By Nate LagosBusiness Education How To Marketing Careers

The Writers Room episodes

November 21, 2025 How Connor MacDonald Plans For Next Year
The CMO of The Ridge is back on the pod to break down how he's thinking about 2026, including 103 ideas to improve performance next year, an increased focused on retention, on-site merchandising strategy, and organic social.

32 min
November 05, 2025 The Best Ad I Saw All October
The best ad I saw in all of October didn't come from a DTC brand you've heard of... It wasn't even a DTC brand...
In this episode I break down the best ad of October & teach you how you should be applying the principles that make it a great ad to your next batch of creative.

If you want your ads to work better, start testing creative, copy, and offers on your WEBSITE with Intelligems.io. Use code NATE10 to get 10% off your subscription price.
9 min
October 30, 2025 Lazy marketers are better than wasteful ones
I think marketers should be lazy

Maybe "efficient" is the better word. But tbh I'd rather lazy over a marketer who doesn't understand the difference between activity and productivity

My job as a CMO is basically to make the company the most money while spending the least money

Hit our biz goals as efficiently as possible.

But I've been getting DMs from CEOs that sound like, "I feel like my marketing team is doing a ton of work, but we're not making an progress. What are we doing wrong? How do I change that?"

So, here's how you change that.

It all starts with a simple, reliable, and repeatable testing strategy that you team executes to learn things about your customers, then applies those learnings to the entire marketing funnel.

Stop, read that again, slowly^

I break down specifically how to test ad creative & landers in this episode of tactical & practical, and even share some juicy results of the first split test I'm running at my new job.

Tactical & Practical is sponsored by Intelligems.io - Use code NATE10 for 10% off your subscription.
16 min
October 16, 2025 2 UNDEFEATED Advertising Tactics
2 Undefeated Advertising Tactics, regardless of any algorithm change, or the channel, or the year... these two tactics, when executed well & consistently, will improve the effectiveness of your advertising 100% of the time:
1. Understand your customers' REAL consideration journey. How long does it take someone from discovery to purchase? What micro decisions do they need to make along the way before they make the final purchase decision? What are the external & internal factors that are capable of affecting that decision making process? Who (other than the brand) can affect that process? Influencers? Social proof from real customers? An authority in your space? When is the right time in their lives to make this purchase?
If you don't have solid answers to those questions, then you're FORBIDDEN from listening to another marketing podcast. Don't listen to mine, don't listen to anyone else's. In fact, unfollow me on twitter until you find the right answers to those questions (HINT: you can upload all your customer reviews to Chat, ask it those questions, and it'll give you a great foundation to start with)
Then, you can start crafted better messages, offers, and campaign schedules to accelerate those customer journeys and more effectively persuade more of your target audience to buy.
2. Understand how your advertising impacts your ultimate business goals. When you advertise product X, how much revenue comes in from product X? How much revenue comes in from other products who saw an ad for product X. What does the customer journey (12-month LTV) look like for customers acquired on product X? Add up all that revenue, subtract COGS, CAC, and any other costs that went into selling it (software, content creation, etc). Is it actually creating the profit you thought?
Then you need to watch how your advertising inputs affects these outcomes. You might come up with an offer, like a big discount, that produces a higher 7-day ROAS. BUT, if the cohort of customers acquired on that offer are WORSE customers (less repeat purchases), then you might be hurting the long term health of the business.
So, those are my 2 undefeated advertising tactics:
- Understand your customers' real & complete consideration & purchase decision making process, and use that info in your marketing efforts
- Understand how your advertising inputs affect the business outcomes, and make sure that aligns with what the shareholders want to happen.
Stop talking about andromeda please
14 min
October 07, 2025 7 Metrics To Measure FUNNEL FILLING Effectiveness
7 ways to measure the effectiveness of your FUNNEL FILLING:
1. Google Search Volume
2. Total REACH (all ad & organic channels)
3. Cost Per 1,000 Accounts Center Accounts Reached (Meta)
4. New Visitor Percentage (Meta)
5. Blended Cost Per New Site Session
6. Blended Cost Per New Lead
7. Revenue Per Lead (short time frame: 7-, 14-days etc)
What else would you add?
October is FUNNEL FILLING SZN for ecom, but a lot of marketers rely on HOPE to make sure it's going well without any concrete data, which I don't advise.
Measuring these 7 metrics, and comparing them to the same time frame from last year or last sales period will give you a leading indication of how effectively you're filling the funnel, and how lucrative November & December might be for you.
It's not iron clad, every year in ecom is different, but if you pull these metrics compared to last year, you'll start to see a picture of how you're stacking up year over year, and it should become clear what you need to work on before the holiday shopping season starts!
T+P is sponsored by Intelligems.io - Use Code NATE10 to get 10% off your subscription and start making more money by split testing prices, offers, content, and more on your shopify store today!
9 min
September 12, 2025 Trickle Down Tactics
None of you should be copying & pasting the same exact tactics that 9-figure brands use in their marketing to your 6-, 7-, or even 8-figure/yr brands.
You should take inspiration from them, but then run those tactics through the FILTER of your brand, your budget, your bandwidth, your skillset, and your customer base, before applying those tactics.
In this episode of Tactical & Practical, I talk about how we've taken inspiration from Ridge's creator strategy with MKBHD, Portland Leather Goods' Meta ad creative strategy, and how we've used similes & metaphors like great songwriters to improve our direct response copywriting.
Go to Intelligems.io to start split testing high impact areas of your website and making your ad dollars more efficient!
*before any of you say trickle down economics don't work so you hate this episode, shut up. Idk what trickle down economics are but I've made good money doing this^ and trickle down tactics was a catchy name for this episode. Stop being a dork.
13 min
September 09, 2025 I Quit My Job (3 biggest lessons learned)
Tactical & Practical is brought to you by Intelligems.io - your one-stop-shop for PROFIT GROWTH. Split test prices, offers, progress bars, content, and anything else you can think of on your website to maximize your top and bottom line.
Here are the 3 biggest lessons I learned during my time at OG, and how you can apply them to your growth marketing channels:
You’re not selling what you think you’re selling. Make sure you are marketing what your customers REALLY, maybe even subconsciously, want.
Big growth doesn’t come from big ideas. Big growth comes from relentlessly testing & optimizing the fundamentals of marketing. Stack 5-10% wins over and over and over and over again, you’ll pick your head up 12 months later and realize you doubled the size of your company.
Always do what’s best & what works for your brand. Don’t rely on “industry standards” or “best practices.” Feel free to take inspiration from the biggest & best brands in our industry, but make sure you run those tactics through the filter of your brand, your customers, and your budget before executing them yourself
Let me know your fav lesson in the comments, thanks for listening.
11 min
August 26, 2025 Practical Price Anchors
$25 will buy you a bottle of Jack Daniel's in a liquor store, but only 4 shots of Jack in a bar.

When my wife & I go to Five Guys for dinner we usually spend $40, but last night we got it delivered so we paid $75.

At my local steakhouse, the tomahawk at $149 makes the $91 ribeye look like an amazing deal.

And at the movie theater, I never get the medium popcorn for $12.50 because the large is only 50 cents more.

The way we perceive prices as consumers can be manipulated by other closely related costs, the context of where you are & what's going on in your life, and even the emotions you're feeling.

So today we're going to talk about how to use these practical price anchors to your advantage for your ecom store.

Because if you're not anchoring your prices throughout your marketing funnel, your customers are going to anchor them for you, and most often they'll compare it to the last thing they bought on amazon, and you're going to lose that battle.

Take 9 minutes on this episode where I give 4 real examples of PRACTICAL PRICE ANCHORS.

Tactical & Practical is sponsored by Intelligems.io - the ultimate split testing tool that's proven to increase & optimize your P&L. Go to Intelligems.io and let em know I sent you to start making more money from your website visitors today!
10 min
August 19, 2025 PRO Checklist: Countdown To Black Friday
I'm running through our MANDATORY website testing checklist before Black Friday in this episode. It's going to guarantee that our funnel is as dialed in as possible before we get to Nov 1st and have to start scaling aggressively.

If you feel like your website testing strategy has been a little sloppy, or maybe a little inconsistent, send this to your team and make sure you're dialed in for Christmas.

This episode wouldn't be possible with our website split testing partner: Intelligems.io - the most reliable & profitable split testing tool out there! Go check them out and let them know I sent you.
12 min
August 16, 2025 How Marketing Should Influence Product Development
I'm not a watch designer by any means... in fact, most of you have seen the way I dress, I have no business working in the fashion industry whatsoever...
But, there are still some instances where marketing needs to inform product development.
1. When there's low hanging fruit based on sales data
2. When the product launch calendar needs to support performance marketing
3. When there's customer feedback
4. When you need new products to expand your TAM
I break down these 4 points with real world examples in this 8 minute episode.
Tactical & Practical is sponsored by Intelligems.io
10 min