Daniel James

Daniel JamesAug 21, 2026

Most fashion brands don't get killed by their marketing. They get killed by their inventory. But it's not the buy that kills them. It's that the growth system was never built to support the buy. You committed to the range 6 months ago. Categories, sizes, colours, depth. Then you point an ad account at it that's optimising for one blended number. So it does exactly what you asked it to do. It pours spend into the 5 SKUs already selling, and leaves the rest to sit until the only lever left is a discount code in November. That's not the algorithm getting it wrong. That's the growth system being wrong for the business it's supposed to be selling. Past $5M this is the whole game. Wrote up what the fix actually looks like, link to the article in the comments 👇

Daniel JamesAug 27, 2026

I'm 41 I launched my first business at 35 I worked nights and weekends outside my full time job for a year to grow it to a point where we had several FTE before I joined full time and started taking a salary I had no track record of entrepreneurship, no lemonade stands, no financial runway to 'figure it out, it started from $0 I made every mistake you can make, throughout retaining the belief: 1. I will figure it out 2. I will learn from every mistake 3. I know this can work Where that belief came from, I do not know! Because at times, it looked doomed to fail. We've had great months, bad months, up years, flat years, but along the way I've always been driven by being THE BEST. And its guided every decision I have made. Not the biggest in terms of revenue, not the most clients, not the largest headcount, not better than (fill in the blank agency) THE BEST, as a measure of our prior selves. If we cannot stand by our results, our reputation, our work ethic, our level of 'give a shit', pushing for and challenging ourselves to operate and execute at the highest standards and expectations, then we cannot say we are the best. In reality, you never reach that point. You never reach 'ok we are he best now' - and thats the point. And that is what fuels me every single day. To keep finding those 1% improvements. To keep challenging myself on how I can be the best leader for the team. I say this all the time to our team. It's the work we do, on ourselves, our level of critical thinking and execution that is the #1 priority in everything we do. Our clients are not the #1 priority (we love you all, but you are not) Our clients hire us to deliver results and a great experience. It's a small reframe, however, the way you do that is the work you do day in day out, outside of the client meeting, outside of the slack communication, outside of the QBRs, that SHOWS UP, in performance, in those forums, and in the overall client experience. There is no end point. Just constant improvement.

Daniel JamesAug 25, 2026

Do Attribution Tools ACTUALLY help? The fundamental problem with using Attribution platforms to make Meta optimization decisions is that Meta does not optimize to their version of reality. Yet we see it time and time again, resulting in missing the goal trying to be achieved. Meta optimizes based on: The conversion events it receives The attribution model inside Meta The signals generated by users interacting with ads Its own prediction models for future conversions Attribution Tools are an external reporting layer. It can provide a useful business-level view of performance, but it has zero influence over how Meta's algorithm actually spends money. This creates a disconnect. You might see: Campaign A = 2.0x ROAS in said Attribution Platform Campaign B = 4.0x ROAS in said Attribution Platform And conclude that budget should move from A to B. The problem is that Meta may see the exact opposite: Campaign A is generating stronger learning signals Campaign A is acquiring more valuable customers Campaign A is feeding upper-funnel demand that converts later Campaign A is supporting remarketing performance elsewhere As a result, reducing spend on A can actually hurt total account performance, despite the attribution tool suggesting it is the weaker campaign. This is why many brands fall into the trap of "managing the dashboard" instead of managing the business. The more mature a brand becomes, the less valuable campaign-level attribution tools become for budget decisions. Instead, budget decisions should be driven by business outcomes. The metrics that actually matter: 1. nMER (New Customer MER) New customer revenue ÷ ad spend Tells you whether acquisition efficiency is improving or deteriorating. Directly tied to future growth. 2. MER Total revenue ÷ ad spend The cleanest measure of overall marketing efficiency 3. ACoS Ad spend ÷ revenue Often easier for operators and finance teams to manage & creates clear guardrails for scaling 4. New Customer Trends New customers acquired Cost per new customer New customer revenue First-order AOV Growth ultimately comes starts with acquiring customers. 5. Product Sales Trends Which products are growing? Which products are declining? Which categories are driving new customer acquisition? Which SKUs are supporting retention? This provides insight into where demand is actually being created & when your creative strategy is product driven, and your meta structures provide leverage on audience segments, products/categories, you know the actions to therefore take. The reality is attribution tools are best used as: Directional reporting tools Trend analysis tools Channel contribution tools They are not optimization engines (yet) Your job is to determine whether the business is becoming more efficient at acquiring customers and generating profitable revenue. That's where nMER, MER, ACoS, new customer growth, and product-level trends become the actual operational and optimization lever north stars.