Marketing Operators

This episode is brought to you by AppLovin. Get access to the Operators channel expansion playbook, online masterclass, and up to $5k in ad credits here:
https://www.9operators.com/paid-growth 
Or, skip the waitlist and launch your AppLovin ads today with our Operators-exclusive link: https://axon.ai/en/9operators 
“Growth can actually kill a business that’s not prepared for it.” 
Bryan Cano (fmr. Head of Marketing, True Classic) joins Connor MacDonald (CMO, Ridge) and Connor Rolain (Head of Growth, HexClad) for a conversation that spans the full arc of his career. Bryan breaks down the stair-stepping method for scaling without blowing up operations, what it looks like to rebuild a marketing org ahead of Black Friday, and how True Classic became one of the earliest brands to scale AppLovin to $100K per day in spend. 
Still an advisor to True Classic, Bryan also shares what he’s building next — an AI-first brand consolidator with a founding team he describes as an executive AI stack + a first product just weeks away.

It’s a MOps Hotline special episode! Connor MacDonald (CMO, Ridge), Cody Plofker (CEO, Jones Road Beauty), and Connor Rolain (Head of Growth, HexClad) answer your most pressing questions. Especially how to get started. Connor MacDonald shares what he’s learning in real time from launching a new supplement company from scratch — no Ridge halo, no shortcuts.
The trio breaks down why organic distribution has become the non-negotiable foundation before touching paid, and how to think about scaling a Meta account from $500 a day to $1,000 and beyond. They also dig into the evolution from demand capture to demand creation, how to read the signals in your ad account, and why onsite CRO (conversion rate optimization) might be the most underrated lever in your whole growth stack.
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Prescient AI 
https://www.prescientai.com/operators
Richpanel
https://9ops.co/richpanel
Aftersell
https://9ops.co/4i3bb5
Rivo
https://www.rivo.io/operators
Operators Newsletter
https://9operators.com/

What if the reason your channel expansion isn’t working has nothing to do with the channel?
Connor MacDonald (CMO, Ridge), Cody Plofker (CEO, Jones Road Beauty), and Connor Rolain (Head of Growth, HexClad) break down what drives channel expansion decisions. They use the David Protein bar lawsuit as a jumping-off point to discuss bold brand marketing and the frameworks behind how DTC brands scale beyond Meta.
The hosts dig into why thinking about customers acquired — not revenue generated — changes how you sequence channel investment. They debate the biggest mistakes they’ve each made with channel timing and what they’d do differently if they were launching a brand today. The conversation gets specific about TikTok Shop affiliate structures, how organic content creation seeds better paid performance, and why baseball on linear TV is offering CPMs that rival platforms can’t touch right now.
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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
Richpanel 
https://9ops.co/richpanel
Aftersell 
https://9ops.co/4i3bb5
Haus 
https://www.haus.io/operators
Prescient AI 
https://www.prescientai.com/operators
Operators Newsletter 
https://9operators.com/

“The market will tell you your hero — you can’t decide it.”
How do you build a brand after you've seen the inside of 30 others?
Connor Rolain and Cody Plofker sit down with Ari Murray, Chief Digital Officer at Salt & Stone, who spent four and a half years as Chief Growth Officer at Sharma Brands before going in-house. They dig into what it takes to lead growth for a single brand after years of running it for dozens at once.
You’ll learn when to hire an agency versus build in-house, and why the answer changes as a brand matures. Ari shares how Salt & Stone approaches acquisition without discounting, why discovery sets are central to their DTC funnel, and how she thinks about first-order AOV in a scent-driven category where customers can't smell the product before they buy. 
They also discuss session growth as a daily obsession, the real cost of dabbling in new channels without enough commitment, and why the line between brand and performance is too often drawn in the wrong place. 
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Motion Creative Benchmarks 2026https://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
Rivo
https://www.rivo.io/operators
Prescient AI https://www.prescientai.com/operators
Richpanel https://9ops.co/richpanel
Operators Newsletter https://9operators.com/

Are you making decisions based on data that proves causality or just correlation?
Connor Rolain (Head of Growth, HexClad), Connor MacDonald (CMO, Ridge), and Cody Plofker (CEO, Jones Road Beauty) dig into what it means to build a truly incrementality-first marketing organization.
They break down how to string together consecutive channel tests — using each result to build the next hypothesis rather than testing in isolation. They share real examples from their own accounts, including how a 20% budget shift to brand video drove a 40% lift in incremental results, why TikTok Shop is proving to reach a new audience for HexClad, and how Jones Road diagnosed and rebuilt a struggling Meta account from first principles.
The conversation also tackles the nuance of measuring upper-funnel channels like CTV and YouTube, when directional reads are enough, and how to build a culture where your team learns to think incrementally without being told to.

Powered By

Motion Creative Benchmarks 2026
https://motionapp.com/thumbstop-pulse/creative-benchmarks-2026?utm_campaign=marketing-operators&utm_medium=sponsor

Haus
https://www.haus.io/operators

Prescient AI 
https://www.prescientai.com/operators

Richpanel 
https://9ops.co/richpanel

Aftersell 
https://9ops.co/4i3bb5

Operators Newsletter 
https://9operators.com/