Marketing Operators

“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. 
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Motion Creative Benchmarks 2026 
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Haus
https://www.haus.io/operators 
Richpanel
https://9ops.co/richpanel 
Aftersell
https://9ops.co/aftersell-mops 
Operators Newsletter
https://9operators.com/

“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. 
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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/

“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 
Aftersell
https://9ops.co/aftersell-mops 
Haus
https://www.haus.io/operators 
Operators Newsletter
https://9operators.com/

“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.
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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/

“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-podcast
Aftersell 
https://9ops.co/4i3bb5 
Haus
https://www.haus.io/operators 
Richpanel
https://9ops.co/richpanel 
Operators Newsletter
https://9operators.com/