#353 - Meta Ad Secrets: How Top DTC Brands Spend $300K/Month Profitably

Peter Czepiga is the founder of Flighted, an agency that helps DTC brands profitably scale their advertising on platforms like Meta, TikTok, and Google. He also runs his own brand, Ando. Flighted has worked with some of the most popular DTC brands spending between $50-300k per month on ads.

In this episode of DTC Pod, Peter shares his strategies for launching and scaling profitable ad campaigns on Meta for DTC brands. He covers how much to spend to prove out product-market fit, what types of creative work best, his approach to audience targeting, and how AI is impacting ad creative production. Peter also explains how DTC ad tactics can be applied to other business models like SaaS.

Interact with other DTC experts and access our monthly fireside chats with industry leaders on DTC Pod Slack.

On this episode of DTC Pod, we cover:
1. Proving Product-Market Fit
2. Setting up Ad Accounts for New Brands
3. Budget and Assets Needed to Test Ad Creative
4. Creative Strategies for Successful Ads
5. AI in Ad Creative Generation
6. Applying DTC Ad Tactics to Other Business Models
7. Flighted’s Agency Model and Client Engagements

Timestamps
00:00 Peter's background in ecommerce and growth 
04:08 What is takes to prove product-market fit with ads 
09:57 Scaling ad budget after initial traction 
13:32 What is Meta Advantage+ campaigns and when to use it
16:10 How to manage ad frequency and exclusions
19:31 Creative mix: formats, messaging, placements
24:36 Messaging frameworks that resonate in ads
27:43 Tips for sourcing and creating ad creative 
32:31 AI-generated ad creative: potential and limitations 
38:28 Applying D2C ad tactics to SaaS and other businesses 
43:23 How Flighted works with clients 
45:32 Wrap up; how to connect with Peter

Show notes powered by Castmagic

Past guests & brands on DTC Pod include Gilt, PopSugar, Glossier, MadeIN, Prose, Bala, P.volve, Ritual, Bite, Oura, Levels, General Mills, Mid Day Squares, Prose, Arrae, Olipop, Ghia, Rosaluna, Form, Uncle Studios & many more.  

Additional episodes you might like:

• #175 Ariel Vaisbort - How OLIPOP Runs Influencer, Community, & Affiliate Growth

• #184 Jake Karls, Midday Squares - Turning Your Brand Into The Influencer With Content

• #205 Kasey Stewart: Suckerz- - Powering Your Launch With 300 Million Organic Views

• #219 JT Barnett: The TikTok Masterclass For Brands

• #223 Lauren Kleinman: The PR & Affiliate Marketing Playbook

• ​​​​#243 Kian Golzari - Source & Develop Products Like The World's Best Brands

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Projects the DTC Pod team is working on:
DTCetc - all our favorite brands on the internet
Olivea - the extra virgin olive oil & hydroxytyrosol supplement
Castmagic - AI Workspace for Content

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Peter Czepiga - Founder of