Stop Blaming CPM—This 1 Formula Tells You If You Can Scale

How to Ship 500 Ads a Week Without Killing Quality

Why does promoting your best copywriter to run the team usually break it? Most copy chiefs got the job because they wrote great copy. They never learned operations, performance management, or how to build training systems. The result is predictable: the team scales past two or three writers, quality collapses, and everyone blames the wrong thing. The skills that make someone a great copywriter — intuition, instinct, the "magic sauce" — are almost the opposite of the skills that make someone a great manager. Most creative leaders can't even articulate how they make their own decisions, much less teach them to someone else. In this episode of The Scaling Lab, Jairet and Kira sit down with Colin Chung — TNT's Director of Creative Operations, with over half a billion in sales across his career and copy credits at Agora, Newsmax, Barton Publishing, Paleo Hacks, Jim Kwik, and Jay Abraham — to break down what creative operations actually looks like inside a team producing thousands of ads a month. Bonus meta layer: Kira is on Colin's creative team, so she's effectively interviewing her own boss on what's working and what isn't. You'll walk away with the structures, hiring filters, training systems, and feedback loops that let creative teams hit serious volume without quality collapsing — plus Colin's unfiltered take on AI, juniors, and why the future of creative isn't better ads, it's better people. KEY TAKEAWAYS * Understand why creative teams break the moment they grow past two or three writers (hint: it's never just about the copy) * Discover the pod structure that integrates copywriters, strategists, and a performance manager from day one * Learn how to run a weekly "best ads" call that postmortems winners and losers — and why forcing "why?" into every analysis changes everything * Unpack the portfolio mix that protects against creative monotony and unprofitable chaos at the same time * Steal Colin's bonus structure — designed specifically to kill internal toxicity before it starts * Get his hiring filters, including the two written tests every candidate runs and the one non-negotiable he won't hire past * Hear Colin's unfiltered AI take, and why the bigger problem isn't replacement — it's that nobody is training the juniors CONNECT * Book a strategy consultation: https://triedandtruemedia.com/book-consultation/ [https://triedandtruemedia.com/book-consultation/] Sign up for our Scaling Secrets newsletter:https://triedandtruemedia.com/newsletter-lp/ [https://triedandtruemedia.com/newsletter-lp/]

Stop Blaming CPM—This 1 Formula Tells You If You Can Scale

Do you know what you can afford to pay for a click?  Most brands that scale on ROAS or CPA miss the one formula that determines whether scaling is profitable or just looks good on paper. You might be hitting your targets while quietly losing money on every visitor. Or worse, losing out on profit by playing too conservatively. In this episode of The Scaling Lab, Jairet breaks down Allowable CPC (ACPC) and how it reframes scaling decisions through unit economics instead of surface-level metrics. You’ll walk away with a clearer understanding of where your growth ceiling actually is and what needs to change to scale. KEY TAKEAWAYS * Understand if scaling is actually viable for your brand. * Learn the formulas behind calculating what you can afford to pay per click * Improve your ability to compete in ad auctions by increasing your economic ceiling * Discover why optimizing toward ROAS or CPA alone can hide unprofitable growth * Unpack the difference between AOV-based and LTV-based decision making * Explore why conversion rate and AOV are the real levers behind scalable growth * Build a clearer framework for prioritizing optimization efforts across your funnel CONNECT * Book a strategy consultation with Jairet: https://triedandtruemedia.com/book-consultation/ [https://triedandtruemedia.com/book-consultation/]

Creative Diversity Explained: The Who/What/How Triangle Driving Our Top Scaling Ads

Do you know why your winning ads actually work? Most creative teams pump out variations without understanding what they're really testing. They rely on "proven frameworks" and intuition, but when stakeholders ask why a creative decision was made, the answer is often "because it worked before" or "it felt right." You might be hitting your targets while missing the deeper strategic insights that could unlock your next level of scale. Or worse, training your team to be order-takers instead of strategic thinkers. In this episode of The Scaling Lab, Jairet and Kira sit down with John Belkewitch, one of TNT's top creative strategists, to break down the Creative Strategy Triangle—a framework that transforms how you think about creative diversity, testing methodology, and strategic decision-making in the post-Andromeda world. You'll walk away with a clear system for building creative variations that actually teach you something, plus insights into how AI is reshaping both creative development and the future of advertising. KEY TAKEAWAYS * Learn what creative diversity really means beyond surface-level iterations * Understand why asking "why" at every creative decision point unlocks better strategy * Discover the Creative Strategy Triangle framework for systematic creative development * Explore how AI tools can amplify strategic thinking instead of replacing it * Build a testing methodology that generates actionable insights, not just winning ads * Unpack why teaching frameworks beats relying on creative intuition for scalable teams * Get John's perspective on the future of AI-to-AI advertising interactions CONNECT * Book a strategy consultation with Jairet: https://triedandtruemedia.com/book-consultation/ [https://triedandtruemedia.com/book-consultation/] Sign up for our Scaling Secrets newsletter: https://triedandtruemedia.com/newsletter-lp/ [https://triedandtruemedia.com/newsletter-lp/]

Your Winning Meta Ad Will FAIL on YouTube Unless You Do This

Many DTC advertisers embraced AI to scale production and reduce creative bottlenecks, only for outputs to fall flat.  If different departments are feeding different prompts to different bots, the issue is not the technology- it’s the system.  In this episode of The Scaling Lab, Jairet Crum walks through the exact workflow for creating and deploying a series of custom GPTs that move you from raw research to finished ad sets in under 15 minutes.  Instead of guessing what to prompt next, you’ll have the exact tools and structures to move from idea to faster, sharper, cohesive performance creative.  KEY TAKEAWAYS * Structure multiple custom GPTs into a single creative workflow  * Learn why clear instructions and guardrails matter more than chasing perfect prompts * Transform customer research into high-performing creative strategy and briefs  * Develop reliable formats, angles, hooks, and visuals that connect * Move faster with a repeatable system that supports scale.

Create Winning Video Ads in 15 Minutes (My Custom GPT Workflow)

Many DTC advertisers embraced AI to scale production and reduce creative bottlenecks, only for outputs to fall flat.  If different departments are feeding different prompts to different bots, the issue is not the technology- it’s the system.  In this episode of The Scaling Lab, Jairet Crum walks through the exact workflow for creating and deploying a series of custom GPTs that move you from raw research to finished ad sets in under 15 minutes.  Instead of guessing what to prompt next, you’ll have the exact tools and structures to move from idea to faster, sharper, cohesive performance creative.  Get the free resource with the GPT instruction sets and workflow assets: https://triedandtruemedia.com/build-ads-in-15-minutes-with-this-ai-workflow-guide/ [https://triedandtruemedia.com/build-ads-in-15-minutes-with-this-ai-workflow-guide/] KEY TAKEAWAYS * Structure multiple custom GPTs into a single creative workflow  * Learn why clear instructions and guardrails matter more than chasing perfect prompts * Transform customer research into high-performing creative strategy and briefs  * Develop reliable formats, angles, hooks, and visuals that connect * Move faster with a repeatable system that supports scale. CONNECT Want help building a creative system that scales without sacrificing quality? Book a strategy consultation with Jairet: https://triedandtruemedia.com/book-consultation/ [https://triedandtruemedia.com/book-consultation/]