Sibelle Amad

Same skincare product. US CAC $24. Indonesia CAC $3.

280 million people. Third largest Facebook user base on the planet. Median age 30. Middle class growing 5% a year. Beauty and personal care is one of the fastest expanding consumer categories in Southeast Asia.

Meta CPMs sit at $0.40 to $1.50 on most niches. AOVs are lower than the US (think $25-45 instead of $80-120) but the volume math more than makes up for it.

The catch is operational. COD is 60%+ of orders. You need a Jakarta-based 3PL or your refund rate explodes. You need Bahasa Indonesia translation done by a native, not a tool.

Friend of mine pivoted his US supplement brand to Indonesia 14 months ago. First thing he did was pull every active Indonesian supplement ad off gethookd to map the angle landscape before writing a single creative. He's at $400k/month profit there now. Same product, completely rebuilt funnel.

Worth testing if you have the operational stomach for Southeast Asia and a willingness to learn COD checkout flows.

we spent tens of millions on google ads in q1 for 160+ brands.

i did a quick analysis to figure out which channels moved the needle the most this quarter.

here’s what i found:

1. shopping is the money placement of google

shopping placements drove a big chunk of prospecting revenue across our accounts.

Most of it was coming from product category searches like "men's sneakers" or "collagen powder."

super important that your ads show up for these keywords and rank in the top positions

our product duplication strategy helped a lot with this

not just copying campaigns. this is a structured approach we built internally.

strategic duplication across product categories, custom landing pages matched to intent, and feed-level segmentation

it expanded the range of relevant searches we could show up for, including long-tail variations

and it let us appear 2-4 times in the same search in many cases.

2. search unlocked many new layers of keywords

search also pulled a lot of weight in branded & product category keywords alongside shopping

but beyond those searches...

search offers an advantage that Shopping can’t match:

it lets you convert different keyword types with more scaling potential.

- competitor keywords ("[competitor] alternative," "[competitor] vs. [you]")
- research keywords ("best supplements for energy" or "top running shoes for marathons.")
- informational keywords ("how to fix back pain," "knee pain solutions")

search was up 33% yoy and these keyword types played a major role there

but that was only possible because we had the landing pages to back them up

our landing page department put serious work into this

over 170 google ads-specific pages across advertorials, listicles, comparison pages, and more

this significantly lift conversion rates and dropped cpcs, which made scaling these keywords possible

3. demand gen accelerated our scaling speed.

our creative department helped multiple brands scale to 5 figures/day spend through youtube ads.

right now, it’s definitely the campaign type with the highest ceiling on google.

one interesting discovery we had this year was google discover

we saw a 2,365% year-over-year increase in Discover spend. and it's now a placement we're actively building strategies around.

4. we moved with demand shifts and capitalized on search trends.

one thing that isn't tied to a specific campaign type but worth mentioning here

q1 is generally a slower quarter across most verticals

but there's still real volume out there if you know where to find it.

- supplements and beauty saw higher search volume for many keywords
- framing products around what people want in the moment (“new year new me” for new year or valentine’s gift for valentine’s day)
- big holidays like valentine's day and women's day are solid windows for running a sale

we worked with the brands ahead of time to build out the strategies & offers for those windows.

this made q1 way stronger year over year for a lot of our clients.

for some, it came out even better than december

note:

this is a general picture of what we see across most brands.

the specifics will vary depending on the brand and the industry.

but overall, the equation stays the same

- battle-tested strategies for owning the search results
- advanced scaling strategies for pushing spend from the top of the funnel
- timely strategies built around seasonal moments and emerging keyword trends

I’ve built SNOW into a global brand serving millions of customers worldwide.

In 2021 alone, over 13 million people shopped SNOW products

If I had to start from scratch in 2026, here are the five things I’d focus on 🧵

I turned Claude into an AI ad strategist trained on 10K+ winning ads.

Not a copywriter.
Not a Canva template machine.
A real performance creative system.

Built on $100M+ in ad spend, 1,000+ proven hooks, and lessons from failed angles.

Comment “AD” and I’ll send the workflow.

$700k+ yesterday

this only happens when google becomes its own acquisition channel. not relying on meta or anything else to feed it

branded can only do so much. retargeting the same people over and over isn't how you scale

this is demand creation

owning shopping on problem searches before they even know what to buy

"how can i improve skin elasticity"
own the carousel = collagen

"how to improve gut health"
own the carousel = probiotics

"how to build muscle faster"
own the carousel = protein

"how to improve sleep quality"
own the carousel = mattress

problem first. own the real estate. map it to the product

most brands fight over the same 3% ready to buy. go after the other 97% while they're still figuring out what they need

deeper breakdown here

I am thrilled to announce that I have been admitted as an Australian lawyer in the Supreme Court of Victoria!
I am incredibly grateful for the support l've received from my family, friends and my colleagues over the years.