Can’t remember the last time I sent a newsletter because I was BUSYYYYY scaling brands with cool creatives and an even cooler team. 

But I had such a crazy conversation last night and had to write about it.

So I was consulting for an 8-figure brand yesterday.

They have all that it supposedly takes. Big team. Big budgets. Big ambitions.

But their Meta guy hasn't made a creative in MONTHS.

When I ask why his cost caps aren't spending, he says "performance is down." Like it's weather. Like it just happens to you.

"How do you make it spend more?" I ask.

"We can increase the cap."

This is the same guy who's been "doing Facebook ads" for 10 years. He's on all the podcasts. Has "Growth" in his LinkedIn title.

And he thinks the solution to ads not working is changing a number in a dashboard.

Here's what 90% of brands believe about advertising:

Lie #1: "It's about finding the right audience"

No. Meta already knows your audience better than you ever will. They have 10 years of behavioral data. They know who buys shapewear at 2am. They know who impulse-buys jewelry after wine.

Your job isn't to find them. It's to stop them scrolling.

Lie #2: "We need better attribution"

That 8-figure brand? They spent a boatload of time discussing attribution models. 

You know what they didn't discuss? Why their ads look exactly like their competitors'.

Attribution doesn't matter if your ads are shit.

Lie #3: "The algorithm is broken"

My favorite. Go on Reddit right now. Search "Facebook ads 2025." Every thread:

Meanwhile, we're scaling brands from $60k to $600k/month. Same algorithm. Same CPMs. 

The difference is simple: we make ads people actually want to watch.

So if it's not about audiences, attribution, or algorithms... what is it about?

Simple. It's about who you hire.

Most brands don't hire creative people. They hire button clickers, really.

What's the difference?

A button clicker ads person knows how to navigate Ads Manager. They can set up campaigns. They speak in acronyms. They'll optimize your cost caps all day.

A creative person asks: "Why would anyone stop scrolling for this?"

One makes spreadsheets. The other makes money.

Most brands don't even realize there's a difference. They think ads = technical setup. Like it's IT. Like you just need someone who "knows Facebook."

I mean, when I started MHI, the technical stuff actually worked. You could hack audiences, find pockets, scale with lookalikes.

But in the past few years, a lot has changed. The algorithm got smarter. Privacy killed targeting. Now there’s only one lever left: creative.

And nobody wants to admit it. Because making good creative requires understanding something most marketers never learned: how to read people.

I played online poker from 15 to 16. Turned £10 into £10k. Had to stop for some reasons. 

But poker taught me something about ads that nobody talks about:

Everyone has tells.

In poker, tells are unconscious behaviors that reveal what someone's really thinking. A twitch when they bluff. A pause when they have the nuts.

In advertising, tells are the words customers actually use. The emojis they repeat. The complaints they make at 1am.

That jewelry brand I mentioned? Their customers used the same three emojis in every message. We put those emojis in the ads. Sales doubled overnight.

Not because of the emojis. Because we were finally speaking their language.

But here's what kills me:

Your marketing prole will never find these tells.

They're too busy looking at CTR. At frequency. At CPM fluctuations.

They're playing poker by watching the chips. Not the players.

But finding these tells requires doing both creative AND media buying. Which brings me to the industry's dirty secret...

Want to know why most agencies separate creative and media buying?

Because it's easier to blame the other team when shit fails.

Creative team: "The targeting must be off." 

Media buyers: "The creative must be weak." 

Client: loses money 

Both teams: get paid anyway

This is why at MHI we have one rule: If you can't make the ad AND buy the media, you don't work here.

Not because we're control freaks. Because when you make an ad, you need to know:

And when you buy media, you need to know:

You can't separate these. It's like having one person taste the food and another person season it.

Let me show you the actual math of why creative matters more than anything:

Scenario A: The "Facebook Ads Person"

Scenario B: The Creative Person

Who's actually moving the needle?

But nobody wants to talk about Scenario B. Because it's messy. It's unpredictable. It requires actually understanding humans, not dashboards.

This math is simple. Obvious even. So why doesn't everyone do it?

Your ads are failing for one reason:

You hired people who manage ads instead of people who understand why humans buy things.

They're tweaking settings while your competitors are having conversations.

They're discussing attribution while your competitors are reading customer reviews.

They're blaming the algorithm while your competitors are filming in warehouses.

After spending $50M, here's what actually drives performance:

1. Ugly beats pretty

2. Customer language beats marketing speak

3. Founders beat models

4. Speed beats perfection

But your Facebook ads person doesn't know this. Because they've never actually scaled anything. They've just managed other people's money.

Don't believe me? Here's a simple test.

Next time someone pitches you on running your ads, ask them this:

"Show me an ad you made that scaled past $100k spend."

Not managed. Not optimized. Not consulted on.

Made.

Watch them squirm.

Because here's the truth: If they can't make the creative that stops the scroll, they're just expensive button-pushers.

You have two choices:

Option 1: Keep hiring "Facebook ads people." Keep tweaking cost caps. Keep discussing attribution. Keep dying at $10k spend.

Option 2: Fire them. Grab your phone. Film yourself answering: "What's the weirdest thing a customer ever said about your product?"

That shitty video you're embarrassed to post?

It'll outperform your last studio shoot.

I guarantee it.

(Or if you want us to do it for you, book a call. We do free audits and we'll tell you exactly what's wrong.)