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Marketing Operators: Daily Summaries Delivered
by Marketing Operators I Connor Rolain I Connor MacDonald I Cody Plofker
Behind three behemoth brands stand three juggernauts of the marketing world: Cody Plofker (CEO, Jones Road Beauty), Connor MacDonald (CMO, Ridge) & Connor Rolain (Head of Growth, HexClad). Finally, they’re pulling back the curtain to give you a never-before-seen look at what works and what doesn’t work to drive growth.
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- Yesterday1h 2m
TikTok Shop Masterclass: Inside Ridge & HexClad Affiliate Programs
“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 MacDonald breaks down how Ridge structures affiliate incentives, generating 7,000 videos in a single month. He also shares a geolift study showing 88% of GMV Max lift landed off TikTok on Amazon and Ridge.com. The trio close by reverse engineering a TikTok shop brand, from price point to visual appeal. Powered By Motion Creative Benchmarks 2026 https://9ops.co/motionapp-creativebenchmarks2026 Proppel https://9ops.co/weareproppel Aftersell https://9ops.co/aftersell-mops Haus https://www.haus.io/operators NeonPixel https://9ops.co/neonpixel Richpanel https://9ops.co/richpanel-mops Operators Newsletter https://9operators.com/
- 1 weeks ago1h 8m
Meta Ads Underperforming? Why + What To Do Right Now
“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 debate whether TikTok Shop’s affiliate program matters more than its storefront. Meta CPMs and click-through rates keep climbing across DTC accounts, even as conversion rates fall. The hosts respond with the exclusion settings and bid multipliers they are testing to fight back. From there, the conversation turns to Ridge’s chains launch and the pricing lessons behind it. Powered By Motion Creative Benchmarks 2026 https://9ops.co/motionapp-creativebenchmarks2026 Richpanel https://9ops.co/richpanel-mops Aftersell https://9ops.co/aftersell-mops Haus https://www.haus.io/operators NeonPixel https://9ops.co/neonpixel Operators Newsletter https://9operators.com/
- 2 weeks ago1h 11m
The Performance Creative Director Hire: Operator vs. Ideator
“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 agents are emerging as a serious ecommerce conversion rate optimization play. They debate whether a great creative strategist should be an operator or an ideator. The answer is neither alone. Both hosts unpack why less prescriptive creator briefs are now producing better-performing ads than heavily scripted ones. The hosts close with a quick over-under on the retention tools most brands either overinvest in or ignore entirely. Powered By Motion Creative Benchmarks 2026 https://9ops.co/motionapp-creativebenchmarks2026 NeonPixel https://9ops.co/neonpixel Richpanel https://9ops.co/richpanel Aftersell https://9ops.co/aftersell-mops Haus https://www.haus.io/operators Operators Newsletter https://9operators.com/
- 3 weeks ago1h 1m
Big-Swing vs. Incremental: Our Ecommerce CRO Testing Framework
“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/
- 4 weeks ago1h 4m
The Right Way to A/B Test Landing Pages on Meta Ads for Ecommerce
“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 pages and what a disastrous A/B test on a new offer taught Ridge about how Meta allocates spend. They examine the operational cost of landing page sprawl, how to structure a site-wide theme A/B test without introducing too many variables, and whether DTC brands at scale should slow down product launches or double down on them. AG1’s move into creatine opens a broader conversation about the limits of single-SKU subscription businesses along with where product expansion makes sense. 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 Aftersell https://9ops.co/aftersell-mops Haus https://www.haus.io/operators Richpanel https://9ops.co/richpanel Operators Newsletter https://9operators.com/
- Jun 23, 20261h 14m
How to 2x Your A/B Testing Output Without More Budget
“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/
- Jun 16, 202657 min
DTC Content Creation Process That Wins on Paid Social
“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 that outperform everything else in the ad account. The episode covers the full content production stack: multi-team shoot briefing, on-set creative strategy, and the in-house studio advantage. The trio also gets into clipping, AI-generated UGC, and whether dead internet theory is already shaping how products go viral. 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 Haus https://www.haus.io/operators Richpanel https://9ops.co/richpanel Aftersell https://9ops.co/aftersell-mops Operators Newsletter https://9operators.com/
- Jun 9, 20261h 4m
How AI Is Reshaping Ecommerce Growth Teams: HexClad & Jones Road
“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/
About Marketing Operators
Behind three behemoth brands stand three juggernauts of the marketing world: Cody Plofker (CEO, Jones Road Beauty), Connor MacDonald (CMO, Ridge) & Connor Rolain (Head of Growth, HexClad). Finally, they’re pulling back the curtain to give you a never-before-seen look at what works and what doesn’t work to drive growth.
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