Will

I like to build

[Will @willlthomas]

@ecomrew If it ain’t broke don’t fix it

[Will @willlthomas]

That's twice today, on two separate occasions, I've clicked an ad on Instagram and the link wouldn't open.

Very concerning for me as an advertiser. We pay Meta so much money for these ads and then the links don't work.

Ad costs are so high, cpc is through the roof and performance has dropped off a cliff since October 24th, and now I'm wondering if this could be playing a part.

Anyone else seen this?

[Will @willlthomas]

@nicktheriot_ You can still set creatives for different placements through the api

[Will @willlthomas]

@dieworkwear Yea because making your own tech pack from scratch with no technical skills is incredibly hard. It's expensive and it takes a lot of patience. I did it and it paid off, but it took a long time.

[Will @willlthomas]

@BallinFil Fear of account restrictions cause “bot activity”

[Will @willlthomas]

@doganuraldesign Epic!!

[Will @willlthomas]

@dimvji Reading > watching

[Will @willlthomas]

@alexgreensh Very cool!!

[Will @willlthomas]

@ilyasu Nope! Especially Meta

[Will @willlthomas]

Yesterday’s RMIT study showed Shein and Temu have pushed fast fashion to an extreme. But I totally get the appeal of those prices.

Ethics alone won’t change that or beat fast fashion. Brands need to make products that feel better, deliver the same quality every time and stand behind what they sell.

You can’t guilt people into loyalty.

[Will @willlthomas]

@celispj @judgeme I love how quickly things can move nowadays

[Will @willlthomas]

@thsottiaux Design

[Will @willlthomas]

@obsdmd Damn those lemon bars look good

[Will @willlthomas]

@om_patel5 We automated work and got assigned squats 🫡

[Will @willlthomas]

@Suhail @elonmusk Definitely noting this one down

[Will @willlthomas]

@NandosAUS sweet chilli jam is elite 👌🏻

[Will @willlthomas]

I audited 7 years of welcome emails last night. 7 flows, every subject, button, open, click, and conversion metric.

The pattern was annoyingly simple.

When the subject made a specific promise and the CTA delivered exactly that, click-to-open hovered around 28-48%.

When the subject was vague, it sat around 5-10%.

Our current first email gets a 3.9% click rate. An old founder-intro version in the same slot got 8.5-12.7%.

I keep trying to make emails "better". The boring fix is usually making the promise clearer.

Guess what I'm doing today?

[Will @willlthomas]

@Rainmaker1973 Damn.. this is good

[Will @willlthomas]

@elonmusk Very impressive!

[Will @willlthomas]

I run two businesses here in Australia.

One is an established e-commerce business. The other is a newer digital services business.

AI has gone from “interesting” to part of the operating system for me.

So that’s what I’m going to post about here.

The decisions I make, the mistakes I pay for, the numbers that surprise me, the dead ends I chase too long, and the small wins that actually move the business forward.

Mostly the stuff I wish more operators shared in public.