Inside the Ad Strategy That Built a $200M Brand!

Today’s Highlights

• 🚀 How Microbe Formulas Built a $200M Brand

• 🎯 150+ High-Converting UGC Ad Ideas to Boost Your Campaigns

• 🧲 Top Trending AI Tools for Growth & Marketing Success

How Microbe Formulas Scaled Without an Agency 📢 

Founded in 2017 by Dr. Todd Watts and Dr. Jay Davidson, Microbe Formulas has become a powerhouse in the wellness space, specializing in natural solutions for gut health and detoxification. Today, with a $200 million valuation, the brand offers a range of supplements designed to support microbial balance and overall well-being.

But back in mid-2020, the brand faced a major challenge. Dave Huffman, then VP of Marketing, was managing ads himself as revenue skyrocketed from $8M to $32M. He was short on time, didn't want to hire an agency, and needed a scalable way to drive awareness, profitability, and compliance—all while keeping ad management lean.

🚀 The 3-Stage Ad Strategy Behind a $200M Brand’s Success

When scaling a DTC brand, efficiency matters—especially when time and resources are limited. Microbe Formulas’ former VP of Marketing, Dave Huffman, mastered this challenge by implementing a three-stage, content-driven ad strategy that helped the brand reach $200M+—without hiring an agency.

Rather than throwing more money at ads or building a large team, Dave implemented a structured, content-driven approach:

Here’s how they did it 👇

🔎 Stage 1: Test & Identify Winning Topics

The first step? Find what resonates with an unaware audience.

✅ Are people clicking?
✅ Is the content engaging?

At this stage, the focus was purely on testing—using traffic and landing page views as key metrics. If a topic got clicks and engagement from the most responsive audience, it moved on to Stage 2 for broader testing.

📊 Stage 2: Validate & Expand Winning Content

Once a topic performed well in the initial test, they expanded it to larger audiences to see if engagement remained consistent.

🔹 If successful, they shifted from a traffic objective to a purchase objective to drive conversions faster.
🔹 They also built retargeting pools of high-intent users to maximize future ad performance.

🚀 Stage 3: Scale & Convert

At this point, the winning content was aligned with specific products, setting the stage for scaling up.

• The content was repurposed into short, BuzzFeed-style video snippets.

• A product offer or coupon code was added at the end to boost conversions.

💡 No video team? No problem. Dave used Biteable to create these videos in just 20-30 minutes, pulling 3-5 key points from an article and turning them into an engaging, high-converting ad.

If ads weren’t hitting KPIs at this stage, they didn’t kill them immediately. Instead, they tested thumbnails, video sequences, and landing page offers before making a final decision.

🛠️ How Dave Ran This Strategy Without Extra Work

Remember—Dave didn’t have time to spend hours managing ad accounts.

His solution? Delegate.

• He trained a customer support rep—someone with zero ad experience but deep knowledge of the brand’s products and customers.

• He provided a clear process, ad examples, and oversaw strategy with weekly check-ins and spot audits every 72 hours.

📈 The Results? Game-Changing.

💰 $75,000 invested over 60 days
🔥 2.48 ROAS (7-day window)
🚀 3.61 ROAS (28-day window)

Microbe Formulas’ Facebook ads strategy is a masterclass in content-driven growth. By testing, refining, and scaling effectively, they transformed clicks into conversions—and ad spend into serious revenue.

Great ads don’t start with ad spend. They start with smart content and strategic validation.