🤠 Nate Lagos drops a 3-step playbook to craft winning ads

🤑 Connor MacDonald with how to cut your email bill by 50%

🤩 Connor Rolain reveals how HexClad 2x’d their site opt-ins

Plus, the top five headlines in consumer.

Connor MacDonald

CMO, Ridge

How Much Are You Paying For Email Every Month?

Email platforms have been double dipping.

As your list grows, they charge you more. And when someone signs up with multiple emails, you pay for them more than once.

The good news?

Postscript is taking on “BIG” email.

Merges duplicate profiles
Charges based on emails sent
Keeps pricing transparent

It even remembers customer preferences so you can recommend products based on what they like, where they’re traveling, or who they’re shopping for.

Not to mention, they typically resolve feature requests in less than a week.

IMO, Postscript is front-running every other retention marketing platform.

I say this as someone who’s been paying them for five years and would happily complain if they gave me a reason.

Their team put together a free guide with 7 questions to ask your current email provider.

1️⃣ How many duplicate profiles?
2️⃣ Am I paying for list growth?
3️⃣ Who manages stored profiles?
4️⃣ What’s my attribution model?
5️⃣ Does pricing cover your CDP?
6️⃣ What’s my rate upon renewal?
7️⃣ How fast do features launch?

They call it the “Fight Sendflation” Voters Guide to Email.

It’ll make you laugh. It might also make think about switching to Postscript.

Get the Free Guide

Nate Lagos

Bottoms Up Copywriting

How I Find Winning Ad Angles By Targeting Acute Pain

Why does every paper towel commercial start with a spill?

Most of the time we use paper towels to dry our hands or wipe them off during a messy meal. You know, the boring stuff.

So why don’t they show us that instead?

Because it doesn’t sell.

Humans are not motivated by chronic pain. They are motivated by acute pain.

No matter how bad it gets, as long as the suffering creeps in gradually, it doesn’t motivate us to act.

We get used to it. We adapt.

That’s why we stay in jobs and relationships that make us miserable. It’s also why our grandparents get serious about their diet after they have a heart attack. And why people look for a new probiotic after an important meeting was interrupted by a long trip to the bathroom.

Don’t make the mistake of targeting chronic pain.

“Tired of feeling bloated?”

“Struggling with stiff, aching joints?”

“Can’t lose that stubborn belly fat?”

If you want to grab attention, drive urgency, and sell more, then you need to target acute pain.

How? Three steps.

Step 1 Identify Acute Pain

Start with the problem your product solves.

Then ask: When does that problem become hardest to ignore?

One product will have many acute pains attached to it. Here’s a bunch of examples.

Skincare: Breakout before a first date.

Deodorant: Body odor during a hug.

Haircare: Flakes on your black blazer.

Makeup: Mascara running at wedding.

Oral care: Bad breath before a kiss.

Razors: Shaving rash before beach day.

Period care: Leaking through your jeans.

Sleep: Sleepless night before an interview.

Pillows: Neck pain ruined your vacation.

Footwear: Blisters halfway through Disney.

Activewear: Leggings go sheer mid-squat.

Luggage: Suitcase wrecked by airport.

Baby care: Diaper blowout in the car.

Cleaning: Red wine on white carpet.

Laundry: Coffee on your interview shirt.

Cookware: Eggs stuck, breakfast ruined.

I know what you’re thinking.

Won’t creating messaging around those specific pain points exclude people who haven’t been in those exact situations?

No. No, it won’t.

Your customer doesn’t need to have lived the exact moment to recognize the frustration.

It’s why country songs and superhero movies feel familiar even when we’ve never lived those stories … we recognize the feeling.

The situation gets our attention. The feeling makes it relatable.

Step 2 Turn the Moment Into a Hook

Take one of the situations you identified and make it the opening of your ad.

Here are two examples from brands I’ve worked with + three examples from DTC brands that are absolutely crushing this.

Probiotic + Bloating

Chronic (Original)

10 Reasons Why This [brand probiotic] is Putting An End To Bloating

Acute (Variant 1)

Finally, Women Can Enjoy Holiday Meals Without Bloating

Acute (Variant 2)

10 Reasons Why This [brand probiotic] is Putting An End To Bloating After Thanksgiving Feasts & Christmas Dinners

Travel

Chronic (Original)

Travel Essential: Don’t Suffer Through Another Uncomfortable Flight

Acute (Variant)

Don’t Let An Uncomfortable Flight Ruin The First Day Of Your Dream Vacation

And here are a few more examples of brands that I think do a good job of this.

Pooping

Bathroom odor gets a lot more embarrassing when you’re at your date’s place.

That’s the premise of “How to Poop on a Date.” Poo~Pourri makes the stakes immediately clear, then introduces its spray as the way to avoid leaving a smell behind.

Earplugs

“When the Crying Won’t Stop.”

Loop opens with a moment any overwhelmed parent can instantly recognize. Then it connects noise reduction to staying calm and patient with your child.

Apparel

Sweat marks during a presentation. Or when you’re out on a date.

Thompson Tee names those situations, then explains how its undershirt blocks sweat from reaching your outer shirt.

Think back to the paper towel example.

First, you see the spill. Then, you see the towel handle it with ease. The mess makes the benefit obvious.

Your ad should make that connection just as easy to see.

Step 3 Test Different Moments

Don’t stop at the first hook you write.

One product can solve the same problem in several situations. A deodorant can save you from body odor during a …

First date
Job interview
Bus ride home

Write a hook for each. Test them against existing copy, keeping the rest of the ad as consistent as possible.

You won’t only figure out what sells. You’ll figure out when your product matters most to your customers.

Use those insights across your landing pages, emails, and the rest of your funnel. If one moment consistently gets a response, explore it further.

Your next winning angle might be a problem you already talk about, at a moment you haven’t considered.

Put It To Work

Choose one product, then …

1️⃣ Identify three acute pains
2️⃣ Write three hooks for each
3️⃣ Test them in the ad account

Paper towel ads don’t need to explain why clean floors matter. They just show you the red wine hitting the carpet.

Find your customer’s spill.

Nate Lagos led marketing for Original Grain, Dugout Mugs, and Adapt Naturals. Now he’s the founder of Bottoms Up Copywriting. Connect with him on X (Twitter) or LinkedIn.

Connor Rolain

Head of Growth, HexClad

Grow Your Black Friday List Before Black Friday

BFCM is one of the biggest revenue opportunities of the year. It’s also one of the most expensive times to acquire customers.

Why wait for acquisition costs to climb when shoppers are already visiting your site?

If they leave without buying or subscribing, you may have to pay again to bring them back. At HexClad …

Our email opt-in rates were stuck at 5–6%.

We switched to Alia and started testing pop-up messaging, design, and timing two to three times per week. We also tailored the experience by geography, traffic source, and visitor behavior.

The results:

Email opt-in rates: nearly doubled
Evergreen flow revenue: 68% higher
Sale-period flow enrollment: +33%

We are not the only ones. Alia powers more than 5,000 leading ecommerce brands.

Why is this so important?

More subscribers today means more shoppers entering your welcome flows and getting familiar with your products before your sale goes live.

Alia is offering our readers an extended 45-day free trial so you can start testing before the rush.

Book a Free Demo

THE FEED

Meta Reveals Its Plan For AI Media Buying

How to Position Your Brand + Products

We Compare a $100 DTC Funnel vs a $100M DTC Funnel

10 Elements of a Winning Offer & Real Audits

The Trends

The five top stories in commerce and DTC.

1. Shopify Brings Checkout Into More AI Agents: Shopify

Shopify’s new Shop MCP connection lets compatible AI agents search its catalog of more than a billion products, build carts, and complete purchases through Shop Pay.

Shoppers sign in with Shop and confirm their total and payment method before the agent completes the purchase. Orders appear in merchants’ Shopify admin as usual, while shoppers can finish buying without leaving the AI conversation.

2. Meta Unveils New Ad Formats: Search Engine Land

Meta announced Ads Super Burst on October 15, letting brands reserve concentrated three- to 24-hour advertising windows, with optional category exclusivity. Advertisers can estimate reach and pricing before booking.

Meta is also testing First Impression Ads in the U.S., giving one advertiser per day the first ad placement people see when opening Facebook. Super Burst is rolling out in phases; First Impression remains a limited test.

3. Amazon’s Holiday Fulfillment Fees Take Effect: Amazon

Amazon’s holiday fulfillment fees kicked in Oct 15 and run through Jan 14, adding an average of $0.32 per unit over non-peak rates. The existing 3.5% fuel and logistics surcharge applies on top.

Meanwhile, Black Friday and Cyber Monday deal submissions close Oct 20, with FBA inventory deadlines following Oct 21 or 28, depending on the shipment-split option. These dates were announced earlier; the fees became effective last week.

4. Marklo Raises $5M for AI Marketing: Crunchbase

Jessica Herrin’s new startup, Marklo, raised $5M in seed funding led by Forerunner. The platform combines sales, inventory, and marketing data to suggest promotions, build calendars, and draft campaign briefs for teams to review.

More than 100 brands are piloting the software, according to Herrin, including Away, Clare V. and Monica + Andy. Marklo is opening public access ahead of the holiday season.

5. Galderma to Buy ZO Skin Health for $1.5B: Business Wire

The company behind Cetaphil and Alastin has agreed to acquire ZO Skin Health for $1.5B in cash. Founded by dermatologist Dr. Zein Obagi, ZO generated approximately $330M in sales in the year ending June 2026.

Its products reach more than 16,500 physician, medical spa, and online accounts across 40-plus countries. The deal is expected to close in late 2026 or early 2027.

I’m Getting More Hats!

If you wrote something nice about my newsletter post last week on X (Twitter) or LinkedIn …