More effort does not equal better results.

Not in business. Not in life.

Breakthrough results come from …

That’s incrementality.

And it’s what today’s main piece is all about.

📊 Derek Lauermann shares 7 lessons on 7 incrementality tests

🏆 Matthew Bertulli provides his playbook for a winning culture

💪 Jason Panzer reveals what’s powering Hexclad’s expansion

🎥 Connor MacDonald invites you to a YouTube ads mastermind

Jason Panzer President, HexClad

The Backbone to Hexclad’s Expansion

We sell into 13+ channels and geographies. Track inventory across 6+ fulfillment nodes.

That expansion wouldn’t have been possible without Fulfil.

Its ERP connects our sales channels, 3PLs, inventory, and financials into one system, giving us real-time visibility so we can scale without added friction.

What I like most, though, is its application of AI. Fulfil’s native MCP allows us to …

• Get answers across our operations
• Compare channel or SKU performance
• Find leakage without manual analysis

Fulfil supports us. It works. Even during peak seasons, when we do tens of thousands of orders per day.

If you’re tired of dealing with middleware + consultants and ready to graduate to big-dog status …

Derek Lauermann Grüns, Dir. of Paid Media

Ad Snacks 🍬 Seven Tests + Lessons on Incrementality

2025 was challenging and exciting for me:

• Ran my first half-marathon
• Trained in Muay Thai
• Joined growth at Grüns
• Started writing for 9Ops

And my wife got me into Pilates. That last one was a very humbling experience. But it got me thinking.

They’ve come from isolating the few actions without which the outcome would not have happened.

Then, ruthlessly ignoring the rest.

In a word, incrementality.

• High impact, low effort → start here
• Low impact, high effort → ignore it

But what does that look like? Here are seven tests that separate input from impact.

You can check them out on Haus’ case studies page. It didn’t sponsor this segment, but Aaron said I had to tell you that Haus is a sponsor of the Marketing Operators podcast.

Before we dive in, a few definitions.

Holdout test: An experiment where a defined audience is intentionally excluded from the thing being tested.

Incremental lift: Performance difference between the holdout group (control cell) vs. the exposed group (treatment cell).

iROAS: Incremental revenue generated ÷ incremental ad spend; essentially a multiplier of platform-reported ROAS.

An iROAS of 2 means the advertising (or change) generated $2 of additional revenue for every $1 spent — revenue that would not have occurred without the ads, after accounting for cannibalization and baseline demand.

Okay, let’s get into the tests + (snackable) lessons!

 1. Dr. Squatch: 1DC vs. 7DC 

Test

Dr. Squatch ran a geo-based test comparing 1D-click vs. 7D-click Meta optimization to see whether a “safer” bottom-funnel window was capturing demand or limiting growth.

Result

The test showed 7DC drove +6.51% more incremental revenue than 1DC — winning head-to-head on lift, revenue, and orders.

Snack 🍬

Meta’s shorter window wasn’t showing the full picture. If two different attribution windows tell two different stories, what you think you know might be noise. Validate causal impact.

 2. Ridge: Product Launch iROAS 

Test

Ridge ran a controlled two-cell Meta experiment comparing evergreen wallet campaigns against new product campaigns to test whether “newness” could reverse declining incrementality and unlock net-new demand.

Result

The test showed launch-focused campaigns delivered iROAS 114% above goal, confirming that newness drove incremental lift. Ridge reallocated more budget toward product launches.

Snack 🍬

New products don’t just refresh the catalog and make more money; new products also reach new people you wouldn’t have captured without them.

 3. Mejuri: New Audiences 

Test

Mejuri discovered that Meta was primarily converting brand-aware customers. It ran a controlled test, shifting 25% of spend to upper-funnel campaigns to determine whether Meta could then gobble up more new-customer revenue.

Result

The test showed a 11% lift in incremental revenue and a 57% improvement in iROAS. Reaching new audiences didn’t hurt efficiency — it improved it.

Snack 🍬

If your best channel isn’t generating new demand, that doesn’t mean you should starve it. Instead, you might need to feed it new audiences from new campaign objectives.

 4. Javy Coffee: ToF vs. BoF 

Test

Javvy Coffee ran sequential two-cell Meta lift tests to determine whether top-of-funnel video creative or bottom-of-funnel product ads were better at driving new orders.

Result

Top-of-funnel creative was 13x more incremental than bottom. Also, its cost per incremental acquisition (CPIA) was 20% lower than its MTA implied, while bottom funnel was 250% more expensive than attribution suggested.

Snack 🍬

What looks “expensive” at first glance can be the engine of real growth … once you measure it properly.

 5. Jones Road: OOH, Measured 

Test

Jones Road ran a fixed-geo OOH test in NYC to determine whether digital billboards drove incremental new orders.

Result

The campaign lifted new orders by 9% with zero impact on repeat orders. OOH proved it could create new demand — but at current costs, it wasn’t profitable.

Snack 🍬

Incrementality doesn’t just tell you what to scale. Sometimes, it tells you what not to. And that clarity is the win.

 6. Hexclad: Tracking Consideration 

Test

Hexclad sells a $700 pan set with a multi-week consideration cycle. They used a three-cell, geo-holdout to measure Meta’s true incremental impact over time.

Result

Initial results looked inefficient. But once a 3-week post-treatment window was added, CPIA dropped 56% at normal spend and 67% at higher spend.

Snack 🍬

If your product takes weeks to buy, don’t measure the conversion cycle in days. Match your measurement window to your customer’s decision cycle.

 7. OSEA: Podcast Ads 

Test

OSEA ran a new-channel lift test on programmatic podcast ads, measuring revenue not just on Shopify but across Amazon, Ulta, Nordstrom, and other retail partners.

Result

Podcast ads delivered iROAS 54% above goal on Shopify and 4× its iROAS goal when omnichannel sales were included. The channel proved to be highly effective.

Snack 🍬

If you judge upper-funnel channels by DTC alone, you might underinvest in the ones unlocking retail growth.

Across fitness, growth, and media, the patterns are the same:

• Safe choices aren’t always best
• Efficiency can hide stagnation
• Wins show up in unexpected places

Whether you’re training for a faster race or building a more resilient growth engine, identify the high-impact inputs.

Then, ignore everything else.

Connor MacDonald CMO, Ridge

One-Day YouTube Ads Mastermind, Live at Google HQ

Everyone is talking about scaling YouTube ads.

But only a few brands are doing it.

Want to learn how?

Here’s what to expect …

Lessons From Tens of Millions in Spend

Discover what’s working today — and what to avoid — based on data from brands that scaled aggressively in 2025.

Direct Access to Google’s Own Experts

Get soon-to-be-released platform updates and best practices straight from the people building the tools.

Connection With Top Ecom Leaders

Rub shoulders and build connections with founders, CMOs (like me), and growth leaders from amazing brands.

If you’re an 8–9 figure brand currently advertising on YouTube or planning to this year, this event is designed for you.

It’s free to attend for approved brands.

This venue is insane; an actual aircraft hangar rebuilt into one of Google’s most innovative campuses.

Matthew Bertulli CEO, Pela Case & Lomi

Five Pillars of a Winning Culture

There are hundreds of books on company culture. But I don’t think any of them have nailed it like this one line.

Culture is what you tolerate.

If you permit …

• Complacency: People stop growing
• Ignorance: Accountability disappears
• Missed deadlines: Urgency feels fake

That might sound harsh.

But the winning formula is ...

More specifically, here are five pillars of a great culture I’ve identified after more than 16 years as an entrepreneur and CEO.

Plus, the core values that guide us at Pela Case & Lomi.

1. Transparency

Honesty builds trust, and trust is the foundation of everything else. Being open about both wins and losses gives your team context, confidence, and real stakes.

Share decisions early, explain why, and don’t hide misses.

2. Accountability

This goes beyond hitting numbers or meeting deadlines. It’s about owning the process and the outcome. When someone misses, they should be the first to flag it and propose a solution.

Assign owners to outcomes. Expect them to raise their hand first.

3. Improvement

When small mistakes or inefficiencies go unchallenged, mediocrity becomes the norm. Winning teams don’t do the bare minimum; they challenge themselves to improve.

Foster self-challenge; provide support, coaching, and training.

4. Respect

This isn’t just a corporate checkbox. It’s about creating a place where everyone feels valued and heard, where different perspectives lead to better solutions.

Listen without interrupting. Debate ideas, not people.

5. Recognition

Recognizing hard work reinforces a hard-working culture. Money is powerful, but so is public recognition, career advancement, and genuine appreciation.

Call out specific wins publicly and close to when they happen.

 Lomi & Pela’s Core Values 

Those are the foundational pillars for a great culture.

Core values, on the other hand, should be unique to the kind of business you want to build — and the person you want to be.

These are our guardrails for how we expect people to show up, even when leadership isn’t watching.

Community

We play, laugh, and engage in meaningful debate. We take care of the whole — the individual, team, business, community, and planet. Everything we do must be good for all those stakeholders.

Consciousness

We’re mindful of the impact of even the smallest decisions. We are grateful for opportunities and challenges. Humbled by wins and losses. Concerned with what’s right, not who’s right.

Creativity

Better is born from creativity. Things are the way they are because someone made them that way ... which means we have an opportunity to make them better.

Courage

Meaningful impact requires bold action and real risk. A black eye doesn’t mean you’re weak — it means you weren’t afraid to take on something bigger than you.

A younger me would have told you that this culture stuff is all woo-woo hippy crap. Now, I realize that you either create culture or it creates itself.

Ask yourself two questions ...

First, what am I tolerating right now that I shouldn’t be? Second, what would our brand and our culture look like if I stopped tolerating it tomorrow?

THE FEED

​Dropout to David Beckham’s Cofounder: Danny Yeung, CEO of IM8 (Operators Titans)​

​8 Practical Money-Making Tips for 2026 (Part 2)​

​The New Ecommerce Playbook: DR Funnels, CRO, and Buyer Behavior​

 My Diet is Ruined ... 

Yesterday, I had dinner with 20 operators at Wolfgang Puck’s CUT in Beverly Hills. Saturday, I’ll feast on a Beef Wellington made by Gordon Ramsay at HexClad’s charity event.

Then, on Sunday, I have to figure out how I’m going to cope with returning to my day-to-day fare.

Wish me luck.

If you’re in LA, holler! Let’s hang.

With thanks and anticipation,
Aaron Orendorff 🤓 Executive Editor

PS (Disclaimer): Special thanks to Fulfil for sponsoring today’s newsletter.

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