Creative strategy for DTC brands

Most brands don't have a traffic problem. They have a creative problem

I'm Martin Löfvall. I build the ad creative and offers that lower new-customer CAC for beauty, supplements, sleep and wellness brands doing €50k to €800k a month. You work with me, not an account manager.

Book an ad account audit €1,350 one-off · paid work, not a sales call
Brands I own and run Nyght Cosnetic

Receipts

Eight years of building, measured in my own P&L.

Cosnetic lash kit flat lay Beauty
$1M+

in sales from a lash brand I own

Sleep brand creator still Sleep
3.37

peak MER on a sleep brand I co-own

Cosnetic lash cases on linen Creative
84

statics shipped in one testing cycle

Cosnetic mascara close-up Method
21

angles written, briefed and tested

Cosnetic portrait in window light Proof
749

Trustpilot reviews feeding the creative

Nyght sleep shoot, eye mask Operator
8+

years running my own DTC brands

Numbers from brands I own and run.

Where the money leaks

If ads feel harder this year, it is usually one of these three.

01

You're paying too much for a new customer.

CAC has climbed for three quarters straight and the answer keeps being more budget instead of better creative. Media buying can only fix so much of that.

02

Your testing has no system.

Ads get made when somebody remembers to make them. Nobody can say which angle won last month, or why, so every test starts from zero.

03

Revenue grows. Margin doesn't.

Every extra €100k in sales costs more than the last €100k. The dashboard looks like a good year while contribution margin stays flat.

The method

The AHPO System

Four stages. Every stage ships a file you keep.

This is the system I run on my own brands, in the same order, every month. Each stage has an input, an output and a number that says whether to keep going.

01Angle

We pick the belief we are changing, not the feature we are showing. One angle per cycle, written down, with the competitor angles it fights.

OutputAngle brief: "Your lashes aren't thin. Your remover is." Ranked against 6 competitor angles.
02Hook

The first three seconds decide what the rest of the spend costs. Ten hooks per angle, cut as separate ads so the winner is obvious.

Output10 hook scripts plus shot list. Judged on 3s hold rate and cost per click, not opinion.
03Proof

Proof keeps the click cheap after the hook lands. Creator footage, user diaries, review counts, claims that stay inside EU rules.

OutputProof block plus signed claim file. Every on-screen line mapped to a source.
04Offer

The offer sets AOV and payback. Bundles, subscription, first-order gift, and the page that has to carry them.

OutputOffer test: 2-pack versus single plus refill plan, with break-even CAC for each.
Weekly 1 angle, 10 hooks, 4 edits shipped Monthly testing roadmap and claim file updated Reported on CAC, contribution margin, AOV, repeat rate

From my brands

Cosnetic portrait Cosnetic, sunlit portrait Nyght pillows Cosnetic lashes on linen Nyght, wrapped in a blanket Cosnetic lashes on a pink knit Cosnetic lashes by the pool Nyght sleep shoot Nyght duvet portrait Cosnetic lash kit Cosnetic mascara close-up Nyght, reading in bed

How we work together

Three ways in. All of them run on AHPO.

Creative Strategy Retainer

The full system, run monthly, with me on the account. You get the thinking and the files, your buyer gets a queue of ads worth testing.

  • Angle research and written angle briefs
  • Ten hooks and full ad scripts per angle
  • Creator briefs, ready to send
  • Monthly testing roadmap
  • Weekly review of what won and why
1 angle / week

plus 10 hooks and 4 edits, shipped on a fixed cadence.

Best for brands already spending €30k+ a month on Meta.

Nyght sleep shoot, eye mask and silk
From €5,000

a month, plus a bonus on contribution margin.

Compliance-safe claims for beauty and supplements (EU). Every claim mapped to a source.

Case 01

My own money first. Then yours.

Lash trays from the beauty brand
140 100 60 Week 1 Week 4 Week 8
New-customer CAC Contribution margin Index, week 1 = 100. Example report structure, not client data.
Challenge
A strong repeat product sold as a one-off. Paid social carried the whole business, creative was one format on repeat, and every new customer had to pay for itself on the first order.
Built
Subscription relaunch: refill plan and bundles so the second order was designed in, not hoped for. UGC system: a standing creator roster briefed from winning angles, shipping weekly. Email and SMS flows: welcome, replenishment reminder and winback tied to the refill cycle.
Result
Past $1M in sales and 20,000 customers, with 749 Trustpilot reviews feeding the proof stage.
Still true
I own it and still run it, so the system keeps getting tested on my own P&L before it reaches a client.

Founders

What it's like to work with me.

"Martin is one of the sharpest ecommerce people in my network. You can feel the many years of experience and the breadth of it: operations, website, CRO, paid ads and branding."

"Martin er en af de skarpeste jeg har i mit netværk til ecommerce. Man kan tydeligt mærke de MANGE års erfaring han har og den brede forståelse for optimering og skalering af alle aspekter af en ecom: drift, hjemmeside, CRO, paid annoncering og branding."
Original, Danish

TM
Thomas Melgaard
Skagen Clothing

About

Martin Löfvall

Martin Löfvall · Nicosia, Cyprus

I'm Martin. Danish, based in Cyprus, and I have been building and running DTC brands for more than eight years.

I started on the operator side, not the agency side. My own brands paid for my mistakes: a lash brand past $1M in sales and 20,000 customers, plus supplement and sleep products that taught me how fast margin disappears when creative goes stale.

That is the whole reason to hire me. I still run my own brands, so every angle, hook and offer I recommend has already been tested with my own money. If it doesn't work there, I don't sell it here.

You get me on your account. No account manager in between, no strategy deck written by someone who has never paid for a customer.

Calculator

What a lower CAC is worth to you.

Three numbers from your ad account. See what cheaper new customers are worth, and whether my retainer pays for itself.

1Your numbers today

€
€

Ad spend divided by new customers. Your CAC.

€

After product, shipping and fees. A €55 order at 65% margin keeps about €36.

2The what-if

%

A scenario to test against, not a promise.

Same ad spend, cheaper customers

New customers today

889

a month

20% cheaper

1,111

+222 a month

Extra profit for you

+€8,000 / month

222 extra customers × €36 each. About €96,000 a year.

Extra profit€8,000
My retainer€5,000

You keep +€3,000 a month after my fee.

Break-even: customers need to get 13.5% cheaper for my retainer to pay for itself.

Good fit for the retainer. Start with the audit to find where the CAC is being lost.

Book an ad account audit

Counts first orders only. Repeat orders make every number here better.

How pricing works

A retainer, plus a bonus tied to contribution margin.

Start here

Ad account audit

€1,350 one-off

A teardown of your account and your best ads, plus three tests to run next. Most brands start here before anything else.

Base

Monthly retainer

From €5,000 / month

Angles, hooks, scripts, creator briefs, the testing roadmap and my time on your account. Scope moves it up from there.

Upside

Performance bonus

On margin

Paid on contribution margin against the baseline we agree before we start. Nothing is owed if margin doesn't move.

Revenue bonuses reward spending more, which is easy to do and often costs you money. Contribution margin is the number that pays your salary, so that is the number I get paid on. The retainer floor is real: below it I cannot give an account the hours it needs, so I would rather say no than do it badly.

Questions

Straight answers before you book.

Why is the audit paid?

Because it is real work, not a sales call. I go through your account, your best and worst performing ads and your offer, then hand you a teardown and three tests you can run whether you hire me or not. Free audits get treated like free advice, and both sides waste an hour.

Do you run the ads, or just make the creative?

Media buying stays with your buyer or team. I build the creative, the angles and the offer, and I tell your buyer exactly what to test and how to read the result. If you have no buyer, I'll tell you what to look for in one.

What do you need from me to start?

Read-only access to the ad account and analytics, the last twelve months of spend and margin, product samples, your review exports, and whatever claim rules you already work under. The first angle brief lands within a week of that.

How fast do we see something?

Creative ships in week two. Reading CAC honestly takes a full testing cycle, usually four to six weeks, because anything faster is noise. I would rather tell you that now than sell you a fast number.

Do you work with brands under €50k a month?

Rarely. Below that, spend is too small to read tests properly and you would be paying me to guess. If you're close, book the audit anyway and I'll say honestly whether it makes sense yet.

Who actually does the work?

Me. Editors and creators work to my briefs, but the strategy, the scripts and the calls are mine. That also means I take a small number of brands at a time, one per category.

Next step

Book an ad account audit.

€1,350one-off · about 10,000 DKK
  • ✓A 30-minute call, with me
  • ✓A teardown of your top performing ads
  • ✓Three concrete tests to run next

It is paid because it is real work. You keep everything in it whether we go further or not.

Best fit for brands doing €50k+ a month.