The Profit Pyramid: How Built To Scale Actually Scales Brands | Jeremy Gillespie

Bigger ad spend does not mean bigger profit. For our 25th episode, Built To Scale founder and CEO Jeremy Gillespie sits down with Shmuel Herschberg to open the vault on how this agency actually scales brands, and it has almost nothing to do with the number on the ad account. ================================= What you'll learn:Why Jeremy's biggest early mistake wasn't a bad campaign, it was hiring before he had systems in placeHow to use the Profit Pyramid framework to decide if an offer can actually support scale before you spend a dollar on itWhy "never be a one-legged stool" drives Built To Scale's entire channel strategy, and how Meta, Google demand gen, and YouTube each play a different role in the funnelThe real order of operations for scaling: creative first, then conversion rate, then funnel monetization, and why skipping the order breaks accountsHow to size a creative testing budget based on whether you have zero winners or several, and why 20% is the default starting pointWhere AI genuinely helps a media buying team, and why Jeremy still won't let it make scaling decisions on its own ================================= About Jeremy Gillespie:Jeremy Gillespie is the founder and CEO of Built To Scale, a performance marketing agency built around D2C health brands. Before starting Built To Scale, he ran paid media at LinkedIn and worked with startups in San Francisco, and he's personally taken ad accounts from spending thousands of dollars per month to over a half a million dollars a month in profitable spend. ================================= Key moments:01:41 - The origin story: how three consulting clients on the side turned into Built To Scale18:03 - Creative as the tip of the spear, and why conversion rate is the next link in the chain22:38 - The 20% rule for creative testing budget, and when to flex it up27:18 - How AI tags creatives and builds persona matrices without taking over strategy43:06 - Rapid fire questions: Jeremy answers some the hottest questions facing the industry today. ================================= Connect with Jeremy Gillespie: Website: https://www.builttoscale.co/ LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/jeremygillespie1/ X: https://x.com/builttoscalesf Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/builttoscale.co  =================================About The Built To Scale Podcast:Follow us on LinkedIn at: https://www.linkedin.com/company/built-to-scale-agency/ or Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/thebuilttoscalepodcast/For more information about Built To Scale visit: https://www.builttoscale.co/  If you have any questions, suggestions, or ideas for a future episode, please email podcast@builttoscale.co.