I have a VERY introvert dog.
A little background… i got him (Auzzie) when I was about nine, we were new to the country and didnt know many people (or that dog parks exsisted) so we just kept him at home and he never got socialized. He is a mini schnauzeshihtzu mix. Hes 12 years old now. We have a 3 year old Great dane baby her name is Petite (i chose the name hehehe) and he’s actually really good with her (took forever). I dont live with Petite since shes mainly lives with my parents, but i keep seeing videos of people making their senior dogs life so amazing! I want to do so for my Auzzie. I work and go to school as of now but I will make whatever time (and make time) have available for him. He sleeps alot but hes still very active (can hop,run jump everything!) . However we live in TX and last monday it was 98°!!! Its crazy!!! He doesnt like the heat that much either, he has pretty short hair, but still after a while will just want to go home. I see so many videos of people making their senior dogs so happy with adventures but im Not sure how. I dont know but i feel like I need to make his years better, I love him so much and I just want him to have the time of his life. I know this is horrible but I cant tell if hes just a lil sleepy and lazy or if he’s bored…
PLEASE what can i do, i just want to make my dog’s like the best, he deserves it all and more.
I love him, he has saved my life multiple times, id love to make his life the best.

Just sharing because I've nowhere to share. A bit of background. I started cycling again after my car broke down about a month ago. So I bought a dirt cheap MTB for 50 euro and got it fixed. Fell in love with cycling and commuting with it, this time seeing cycling as a serious fun mode of transport. I've never dared to cycle along with traffic before but since I've been having fun, my confidence just naturally grew so now I'm cycling on the road with traffic.
Yesterday I was cycling in the city centre, on the bike lane. A taxi pulled up in front but not blocking the bike lane... As I was approaching the passenger opened the door just about me 2-3 metres away. I had anticipation so I wasn't going fast and used both of my brakes when I saw what she was about to do. The woman was saying sorry and said didn't see me.
I don't blame her. Tbh what I blame is the cycling infrastructure (I live in Ireland), most of the times the cycle lanes are just not in the most logical position or adequate. The teen me would have been detered quickly not to cycle again in the public road but not the adult version of me. I would actually credit the car driving lessons I got and driving test for it (they put a big emphasis on anticipation and checking blindspots here a lot). Knowing the rules of the road and experience with driving a car ,translated to me being a better cyclist as it turned out. In which the teen me would have been scared and detered or probably got doored.

I reached my first milestone in Nov 2021, when markets were at an all-time high. You can find it here: First milestone of 1 cr - Fire journey. Second milestone happened in Jul'23. You can find it here: Fire journey - Second milestone.
Just reached third milestone of INR 3 cr and wanted to share the journey. My original target corpus was INR 3.3 cr (70k per month expense 11 lakh post inflation after 5 years *30x). The target was to reach this in 6 years. Had a few decent years, both on the work front and in investing in markets. Given the current buoyant markets, would want a buffer. I think I'm now getting stuck with the classic issues of "changing the goal posts". The thought process is to continue working till 2026/27 (famous last words :P) before moving away from a corporate job.
Current corpus: INR 3.25 crores

1. Domestic MFs (28%): INR 90 lakh
2. Personal equities (28%): INR 90 lakh
3. International equities (6%): INR 20 lakh
4. FDs (31%): INR 1 crore
5. EPF (7%): INR 23 lakh
6. Gold bonds (1%): INR 2 lakh

Background:
Early-mid 30s; Married but no kids; Monthly expenses: INR 90k (my share); based in India. Not interested in house.
The objective is to be financially independent and not be under compulsion to do a corporate job. Think I'll be able to save around INR 25 lakhs/year. Target of INR 5-6 cr by 2026/27. Would love to do sth on my own post corpus.
Lessons learnt:

1. Automating investments is very peaceful. Saves a lot of time and effort.
2. Net-worth excel helps a lot to track investments.
3. At this stage of career, gains from work/ salary bump ups are way more meaningful than portfolio performance.

To learn:

1. Portfolio still skewed towards debt/ safety. Might have to be a bit more balanced. Suggestions welcome. Want to move it to 70-30 soon.
2. When should one say enough is enough?

Thanks a lot for your time and happy to hear from you.

I reached my first milestone in Nov 2021, when markets were at an all-time high. You can find it here: First milestone of 1 cr - Fire journey. Second milestone happened in Jul'23. You can find it here: Fire journey - Second milestone.
Just reached third milestone of INR 3 cr and wanted to share the journey. My original target corpus was INR 3.3 cr (70k per month expense 11 lakh post inflation after 5 years *30x). The target was to reach this in 6 years. Had a few decent years, both on the work front and in investing in markets. Given the current buoyant markets, would want a buffer. I think I'm now getting stuck with the classic issues of "changing the goal posts". The thought process is to continue working till 2026/27 (famous last words :P) before moving away from a corporate job.
Current corpus: INR 3.25 crores

1. Domestic MFs (28%): INR 90 lakh
2. Personal equities (28%): INR 90 lakh
3. International equities (6%): INR 20 lakh
4. FDs (31%): INR 1 crore
5. EPF (7%): INR 23 lakh
6. Gold bonds (1%): INR 2 lakh

Background:
Early-mid 30s; Married but no kids; Monthly expenses: INR 90k (my share); based in India. Not interested in house.
The objective is to be financially independent and not be under compulsion to do a corporate job. Think I'll be able to save around INR 25 lakhs/year. Target of INR 5-6 cr by 2026/27. Would love to do sth on my own post corpus.
Lessons learnt:

1. Automating investments is very peaceful. Saves a lot of time and effort.
2. Net-worth excel helps a lot to track investments.
3. At this stage of career, gains from work/ salary bump ups are way more meaningful than portfolio performance.

To learn:

1. Portfolio still skewed towards debt/ safety. Might have to be a bit more balanced. Suggestions welcome. Want to move it to 70-30 soon.
2. When should one say enough is enough?

Thanks a lot for your time and happy to hear from you.

Hi! I just recently pick up golf and I really like it so far. I have a background in badminton, so I have a few questions regarding golf lesson and equipments.
First, I decided to start really fresh and take lesson since day 1 since I understand that bad habit is a lot harder to fix than developing correct technique for a newbie. I decided to take 10 classes lesson. However, I feel like if I take class once a week. it is too short to move onto a new technique. Recently, I still work on ball hitting with correct swing. I practice alone at range with Irons about two buckets each sessions and twice a week. I still can't hit the ball with consistency. I try to focus on technique that coach teaches me. Im still far from perfect my short swing ( it is my first lesson after teaching me grip and posture). Second class I was taught how to generate power with backswing using leg and hip, and introduction into driver. I think it is too fast for me to start learning another technique since I haven't complete the first one yet. Should I keep practicing my iron till I feel I can hit the ball with confident and understand the mechanic first then move onto another lesson or Should I keep going to lesson once a week ? I feel like if I don't go into class every week I might develop bad habit and again if I keep going to lesson too soon It would be overwhelm and didnt get much out of it.
Second, I plan not to buy any clubs til I can hit the ball and ready to play because back in my badminton day I had to trade a lot of equipments ( and I also learn some racket are suitable for each level) Recently, I borrow irons from the driving range to practice. Is that ok or I should get my personal beginner level clubs? For example, If you really wanna train badminton, you should not use the same racket as a pro because it might be too stiff and such. However, you should not use the cheap one that sell at Walmart because xyz. Does golf equipment have the same logic behind?

I am not the OOP. The OOP is u/coldmountainde posting in AITAH
Ongoing as per OOP
1 update - Medium
Original - 14th February 2024
Update - 30th May 2024
​
AITAH for not wanting to go back to my wife until she has custody of her children (from her previous marriage) after her son falsely accused me of hitting him?
​
Bit of background, I(40m) have been married to my wife(40f) for 5 years, she has a son(10m) and a daughter(8f) from her previous marriage I have one daughter(7f) from my previous marriage. About a month ago her son accused me of hitting him. I NEVER put my hands on him or anyone. My wife confronted me and I denied it. She didnt believe me. After the argument I went to cool off and talk to my friend. He was worried, very worried and said that I should get the fuck out of the house with my daughter.
He said that I am a man and no one is gonna believe me and I could lose my daughter if things escalate. I finally understood the gravity of situation I am in. After a long walk I made up my mind. I went to my house and asked my wife to come talk to me. I said that I never hit him, I don't know why he said it and I don't wanna know anymore. I told her that I am not feeling safe in this house, and I dont wanna risk my future and my daughters future. I told her I understand her mama bear mindset so I wont blame her for not believing me but last place I want to be is anywhere near a "Mama Bear".
I packed my bags and my daughter's bag and we left for my parents house. I refused to take her calls and asked her to only contact me through messages(since its not legal in my state to record without consent of both parties). Her messages ranged from blaming me to blaming herself and wanting to talk in person.
Three week later she messaged me and told me that she believes me. When I left she actually started to question her son's allegations and obvious inconsistencies started to emerge. She realized that her son is full of shit. She apologized profusely and begged me to come back. I refused I told her that I cant risk it anymore.
I dont trust her children and I dont trust her to believe me. I cant risk it. She asked me what I want her to do, give up her kid's custody and I said, honestly, I do love her and I do want to stay with her but I cant risk it to be with her anymore if her kids are staying with us. I told her I am sorry and I dont expect her to leave her kids so I think its best if we move forward with separation.
Turns out she is actually considering giving up the custody of her kids. He ex-husband called me and asked me why his ex-wife is talking about giving up custody. I told him the truth and he was very angry with her son but more angry with my wife. He respected me enough to not push it further when I told him to sort it out with my wife.
so we are in middle of shit storm and I am not budging. I cant stay in same house as her children. I am getting bombarded by phone calls of people blaming me for making my wife abandon her children. But what other choice do I have, I cant risk going back now.
AITAH??
​
Comments
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Old_Cheek1076
NTA - How does she go from “mama bear who will do anything to defend her children” to, “if you’ll come back to me, I’ll ditch the kids”? Really disturbing.

OOP: "Mama Bear" were my words, I was trying to tell her that I dont blame her for believing her son and I understand her perspective. She didnt use those words.

​
Sunnydaysahead17
I’d make sure to keep all texts and voicemails of her admitting that she found out the kid was lying. You never know how a divorce will turn out. She may get spiteful and try to use this against you.
​
**Judgement - NTA*\*
​
Update - 3.5 months later
​
After I made the previous post, I made the decision to file for divorce and told my wife. Literally the next day my wife told me that she is pregnant. I am gonna be honest I didnt believe her. It was too convenient of a time. I took some time to process it and asked her if she would agree for me to accompany her to the doctors appointment. She agreed. She was 12 weeks pregnant.
We had a talk and I told her that we gonna have to do our best to coparent the baby. She made promise that she will make sure her son behaves from now on, that I will not have to worry about anything. I told her that I am not risking my future on her word considering how easily she believed her son over me. I told her that I am not even blaming her, its not like she was wrong in doing so.
So we are definitely getting a divorce. She is scared to go through pregnancy all alone but what other choice do we even have. We gonna have to do our best. Another child will be raised in a broken family.
Her relationship with her son has gone to the dogs, he is currently living with his father and she refusing to talk to him. I cant find it in myself to judge her. She is going to have to go through pregnancy in her 40s which in itself is complicated enough. On top of that she is gonna have to navigate her divorce. Add her pregnancy hormones to the mix and its just easier to just not talk to her son. All because she believed her lying son.
I did talk to her ex-husband and he and his wife are also struggling. His son is not doing well by his mother basically ghosting him. I guess the 'stern talking to" that one person recommended in my previous post is not needed anymore. He has gotten pretty good idea of how much he messed up.
I guess we are in the situation where everyone loses.
My daughter is only one who is left relatively unscathed, she is adjusting pretty well to the new apartment. She is getting into new routine. All thanks to my friend who warned me in time and helped me shield her from the shit show.
PS: People who were sent me DMs to see how I was doing and for updates etc. Forgive me for not replying, I was very preoccupied with all things going on. I logged on to this account for the first time since I made the earlier post
​
Comments
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yesimreadytorumble
I’m sorry you’ll be stuck dealing with these dynamics for the next 18 years of your life.

OOP: Its fine, i will do my best

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dstluke
I'm thinking son was looking to get you out of the picture. It worked.
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Safe_Community2981
It did, but it also cost him what he wanted which was his mom's undivided attention. Now she's gone, too. He's learned a painful lesson at a very young age about actions and consequences.
​
weaponX34
"Did you do it?"
"Yes."
"What did it cost?"
"EVERYTHING"
​
I am not the OOP. Please do not harass the OOP.
Please remember the No Brigading Rule and to be civil in the comments

Let me apologize in advance: I'm going to be a bit of a hater here. Also, spoilers ahead.
In general, I hate open ended stories (be it books, movies, whatever). It comes across to me as lazy, as if the author didn't know how to end, so they got vague about it. This is a personal preference, sure, but it's one I feel very strongly about. To clarify, I do not need the story to be wrapped up in a nice, neat little bow, where everyone has a happy ending. A story can "finish" before it "ends".
What the hell do I mean by this?
Take, for example, Stephen King's The Long Walk. Major spoilers: Even though Garraty wins, he doesn't accept it, and starts running. We don't get a whole lot of world building to find out how the Long Walk became a thing, we don't follow Garraty after this, and thus we have no idea what happens, but the story is done. Extending it or explaining it wouldn't enhance the story; if anything, writing more would probably bring the horror elements down. The story was finished even though it didn't "end".
Back to Tremblay.
My first exposure to him was of course Cabin at the End of the World. This was before the movie, and it should have been RIGHT up my alley. World ending story that also contains references to religion? Hell yeah! Except, Holy hell, I could not read this thing for the life of me. The book starts off from the y y/o daughter, Wen's POV; she talks about her life, what it's like being adopted, taking language classes. She's in the yard organizing grasshoppers by size and giving them names and writing down what she thinks their genders are and OH MY GOD WHEN IS THIS STORY ACTUALLY STARTING??? At that point, I decided to try to skip ahead. Tremblay was verbose in other parts, so I tried to skip ahead. I ended up mostly going through the dialogue, reading more if it seemed relevant, and was left disappointed. I think the story really would have been enhanced by exploring the backgrounds of the four visitors, but, from what I did read, that didn't happen.
I checked the Wikipedia page to see if it was worth going back and trying again, but the ending If it was the end of the world was left kinda ambiguous. I could see an argument where The planes crashing is too much of a coincidence, so yes it is, plus the movie changed it to flat out saying it's the end of the world, but it just came across as so lazy to me. If anything, I think making the ending unambiguous would make the story better. It doesn't need to go on for much longer, but explaining what the "answer" is, in either case of the world ending or not, would reframe the rest of the story and make it better.
But maybe I didn't give it enough of a chance. I read someone say on here that there is a lot of subtlety in Tremblay's writing, and maybe that would have explained it more if I didn't skip to just the dialogue, so I decided to give him another chance by reading Growing Things and Other Stories, a collection of short stories. Warning: No more spoiler tags after this.
The collection starts withe the titular story Growing things, where there are deadly vines growing in the world. The dad leaves his daughters to go out to look for supplies. He explicitly says that if there is a knock at the door, don't answer it, because it means it's the end of the world. And at the end of the story, there's a knock at the door! The girls go upstairs to avoid the knocking and the vines that have invaded the house, and that's it. I guess this one has an ending: the world ends, and the daughters are waiting to die. Details of their death are left to the reader's imagination, as is any details of the vines, as is a lot of background of the characters. I know nothing, and not in a good way. Let's try the next one.
Swim wants to Know if It's as Bad as Swim Thinks. We start off with the unnamed protagonist working her job at a grocery store, where people are crowding the store trying to buy their items. The protagonist's coworker is talking about something coming out of the water. Protagonist says it's just a movie trailer. Protagonist goes on message boards about consuming meth, so we know she's an unreliable narrator. Not a problem, as this is not quite the same as an open-ended story. She kidnaps her daughter, who she does not have custody of, and takes her to a place from her childhood to be safe with her daughter. But she's following patterns from when she last took her daughter while she was under the influence. She has a gun, and it seems like the police have found her. So she might kill her daughter, and I guess actually there's no monster. Ironically, this story has a lot more world building than the previous one, but it's still left open ended in a way that doesn't contribute to any fear or thrill of the story.
Next up: Something About Birds. To write this review, I re-borrowed this book online from the library to refresh my memory. It wasn't until stumbling upon the ending that I even remembered I read this story, because it elicited absolutely no strong emotion in me, not even distaste. I don't remember it, skimming through doesn't remind me of what happened, so I can't properly comment on it. Same deal with the next story, Snapshot. Looking through the table of contents and skimming through the next several stories (minus Teacher, more on that later), it looks like I skipped reading a lot of them, until I got to "It's Against the Law to Feed the Ducks." Intriguing name, I like animals, so I read this one.
This story is from the POV of the young son, Danny. They go to the beach, which is weirdly empty. When back at the cottage, the parents watch some TV, presumably the news, and are horrified; they get Danny out of the room so they can keep watching. Next day, they go to the grocery store, where it's empty, but people have overflowing grocery carts. Remember from earlier, this is a bad sign. Electronics are also down, as dad has to pay with a check. Another day, another trip to the grocery store; this time, the cashier lets them take the groceries without bothering to count it (another sign!), and Dad fills up the car with gas and gets extra gas cannisters. More TV watching, except in the empty restaurant, where the parents ask to have the TV turned off because of the kids. The story ends with the reason why the title is what it is: it's against the law to feed the ducks, which they obey at the beginning, but not the end, because the world is ending. We never learn what is happening, which makes sense if the POV is from a child, but that doesn't add to the horror. There's no horror from the kid's POV, just confusion. The reader is supposed to understand that Bad Shit^TM is going down, but without any details, I quite frankly don't know why I should care. This is essentially a story about buying groceries and watching TV, bookended by ducks.
Of the stories I've described thus far, we get the whole end-of-the-world theme repeated, without anymore details, without any real ending, and without me caring. The one exception is Teacher, which I liked so much, I read it thrice: the first time, a second time when I remembered it existed, and then I read it again fully to write this review, rather than skimming it.
The story starts with an introduction to Mr. Sorent, the cool teacher^TM. He has long hair and plays guilets the highschool seniors talk about more controversial topics like drugs and abortion, and has some days has Special^TM lessons, which has the same rule as Fight Club: you do not talk about Fight Club Special lessons. In the first one, he shows a video of a daycare/preschool, where a teacher is spinning around with a child and accidentally lets go. Mr. Sorent stops the video, and then moves it frame by frame until a wall comes into view. That is the end of the first special lesson.
Time passes, more special lessons. More disturbing videos, a guest who reflects on how awful it is to have a disease and be used as inspiration porn, all of which end with the video moving a few frames. The protagonist, Kate, tells a story about when she was a kid, and she was forced to watch some boys mutilate a dead frog, and how it affected her baseball game. As the Special^TM lessons bring down the students' academic lives, their personal lives and kate's family life deteriorate as well. The story ends with Kate trying to prevent the video from finishing using the same coping mechanism she used after watching the frog get mutilated: She volunteers for a demonstration, and moves forward without opening her eyes, hoping that if she doesn't, the film will never finish, and the accident with the child will never occur.
So what makes Teacher stand out from the others?
Tremblay actually talks about what's happening; we're shown the progression of the class, the reason why it's happening. There's no mystery of what's on the TV, or why the students are acting the way they are. The why is clear: they're being taught disturbing life lessons from a teacher they used to trust and admire. Sure, we don't actually know if they ever finish watching the video, or what happens after, but it doesn't matter, because the story isn't about that. It's about the students, and we see their arc, as they go from normal teenagers to depressed and cynical teenagers.
In the other works I've mentioned so far, we mostly get that the world is ending (or the addict mother thinks it is), but we don't know how. Considering that the end of the world is what's moving the stories along, IT'S KIND OF A BIG DEAL. Even in Cabin, where the horror is that the family is trapped in a deadly situation, knowing whether or not there's any truth to the visitor's reason for coming to the cabin would enhance the story. Compare to King's The Mist: book ends ambiguously, movie ends tragically, and even King says the movie ending was better. But with Tremblay, time that could be used for learning more about the visitors and if it's the end of the world is instead used on organizing grasshoppers.
Thank you for coming to my Ted talk. Next time I'm here, I'll try not to write in a faux manic state while mildly sleep deprived at 5 am.

Hey Reddit,
I wanted to share my story and some insights I’ve gained while building TextCraft AI, especially for those indie hackers and entrepreneurs out there struggling to get their projects off the ground.
Background
I’m 29 now, and I’ve been involved in building startups since I was 18. I’ve faced the same problems many indie hackers do—starting projects and never finishing them. As an introvert, I didn't have many connections in the entrepreneurial ecosystem, which made things even tougher. I live in Ontario, Canada, where the tech community isn’t particularly helpful, and I moved here from India when I was 18.

• Meeting My Co-Founder

I met my co-founder back in India. He was still in college and didn’t have much time, so I taught him programming so we could start something together. Initially, we thought about developing smart carts for shopping centers, but we abandoned that idea. With AI booming, I convinced him to build something in that space with me.

• Launching TextCraft AI

We launched our startup, TextCraft AI (https://textcraftai.com), on Product Hunt (https://www.producthunt.com/products/textcraft-ai). I thought the votes would come automatically, but they didn’t. We had to invite people manually to vote for our product. Despite getting organic votes from places like Indie Hackers, we couldn't secure the top spot due to marketing agency bots on Product Hunt.
On launch day, we had 15+ users register, which was an amazing feeling. Most users came from Reddit, Indie Hackers, etc. We got featured in several newsletters, and I started focusing on SEO. On the second day, our first user paid $15 for the premium version, but we didn't get another paying user for a month.

• Growing Pains and Successes

Our user base started growing, and people began posting about our product everywhere. I tried Google Ads, Facebook Ads, etc., but most users wanted free stuff and weren't willing to pay due to fierce competition.
When we crossed 300 users, I started reaching out to investors. With no connections, I used Twitter (X) and various email lists. Most investors on Twitter say they are looking for deals but don’t respond or just reject plainly. Eventually, I met an amazing VC who gave me a due diligence sheet, but I realized I didn’t need VC money to scale the project.

• Co-Founder Leaving

Two months ago, my co-founder left the project because he lost interest. He didn’t invest money into the business and stopped showing up for meetings. I ended up helping him get a job. Now, we have 550 registered users, 30k visitors, 2300 backlinks, and users signing up daily due to our SEO efforts.

• Starting a New Venture

I’m still jobless and running this startup. To help cover my expenses, I started a new venture to help entrepreneurs build MVPs at low cost. I’ve put together a team for this, and it’s been helpful. If you're interested, check out http://mvpcat.com (I’m a cat lover, by the way).

• Lessons Learned

1. Most VCs on Twitter are there for publicity. They fund who they like, not necessarily the best ideas.
2. Entrepreneurship is hard. Even with 15 years of programming experience, starting startups and four patents, it's a tough journey.
3. Life is tough without the right connections. Being brilliant isn’t enough.
4. You’ll get more non-paying users than paying ones.It’s just how it is.
5. Most revenue numbers you see online are lies. Don’t believe everything you read.
6. Find a community that supports you and your product. This is crucial for growth.
7. Start with the cheapest tech possible. Don’t overthink it.
8. Stay humble. Owning a startup doesn’t mean you own the world.
9. Support others. Helping others can open unexpected doors.

Some tips

1. Persistence is Key • Even when things seem impossible and you face numerous rejections, persistence can eventually lead to success. Keep pushing forward and adapting as you go.
   
   1. Value Organic Growth • Focus on building a strong product and community rather than relying solely on paid marketing. Organic growth through SEO and word of mouth can be more sustainable and effective in the long run.
   2. Build a Support Network • Surround yourself with supportive individuals, whether they’re friends, family, or fellow entrepreneurs. Having a solid support network can provide encouragement and valuable advice when you need it most.
   3. Be Adaptable • Be ready to pivot your ideas based on feedback and market conditions. Flexibility can help you find the right path forward when your initial plans don’t work out.
   4. Focus on Value Over Funding • Don’t be overly reliant on securing funding from VCs. Concentrate on delivering real value to your users. If your product meets a genuine need, the growth and success will follow, often without needing external funding.

I’d love to hear your thoughts and feedback. Have any of you faced similar challenges? How did you overcome them? Let's support each other on this journey.
Hope this helps someone out there! If you have any questions or need advice, feel free to ask.

I’ve already done the prerequisite googling about TEFL/TESOL/CELTA and think I understand the basics but would like to get the opinions of actual EFL/ESL teachers in regards to my specific situation.
TL/DR: I’m already an experienced music teacher looking for a career change. What level of cert makes the most sense for me?
My background:
I am a music teacher living in the US. I have a master’s degree in music and over a decade of experience teaching. I’ve taught mostly private lessons, with some group classes.
I’ve taught at the university level, but never in a public school classroom setting. I can teach music to children and adults. I have also done Alexander Technique teacher training but am not certified. I’ve taken German and French classes but am not fluent.
I feel confident in my ability to teach, but have never taught English before. I’m considering making a career change to be an ESL teacher.
My plan is to start with online tutoring as a supplement to my current teaching practice and then decide if I want to fully switch to ESL teaching. I’ve not decided yet, but I’m seriously considering leaving the US and may pursue teaching in another country.
My question is what level of TEFL course do I really need? My gut says to take the cheapest cert course I can find and figure it out as I go, but I’ve heard the courses don’t always prepare you well for actual teaching.
Since I already have experience as a teacher I think this may not matter, but I pride myself in being a good teacher and don’t want to be an unqualified hack in a new field. (Maybe that’s just my imposter syndrome getting in the way.)
CELTA seems like overkill with my previous experience, but since I haven’t done much regular classroom teaching before maybe it’s a good idea?
I’m also not sure about the levels. I know 120hrs is the bare minimum, but would a more advanced course benefit me at all? There are 140, 160, “Level 5” 200hr courses…is that all just extra stuff I don’t need?
It seems like at least some of the extra hours in these “advanced” courses are for people to practice teaching real students, but I already do that so….?
I’m also on a budget at the moment, so a CELTA would be a little difficult to do. I wouldn’t mind paying the cost eventually if was worth it, but a cheap TEFL course would get me going faster and I think that might be the way to go for now.
I appreciate any comments or advice. If you made it this far, thank you for reading.

The next morning came very early. The ship woke them up and gave them time to get to the command deck. They joined Captain Oliver there.
"Good Morning!' he said as they came in. "Have a seat, we'll be leaving the dock shortly, and once aligned on our vector, we're off!" He turned back to his console.
They each took seats in the acceleration couches behind the captain. Lan looked around, then asked, "What about the others?" she hadn't seen any additional seating on the command deck.
"Passengers aren't allowed on the command deck." the captain replied, "they have individual acceleration chairs in their quarters. They really don't need them that much, we're only accelerating to one g, and there won't be much maneuvering."
They sat and watched the proceedings as the ships AI and her captain coordinated the undocking, small thruster adjustments pushing the great ship away from the shipyards space dock. When the were a few kilometers off, the great ship fired her thrusters creating a complicated slow motion ballet, as she aligned herself with the estimated position of her destination.
With the final adjustments complete, the captain gave the order, "Engage Drive". Joe and Lan felt the tension against the restraining belts ease as they settled into their chairs conformal cushions. They became heavy, the flight deck took on an orientation, now having a floor and a ceiling, where before it just had walls all round.
A few moments later, Sunny reported, "Accelerating at just under one g, all systems normal, we're on our way."
"Excellent!" from the captain, he rotated his chair around to face his two young earnest crew craning their necks looking out. "You won't see much yet" he said "Come back in a about 10 hours, once we've accelerated to maximum speed, then you'll see something interesting."
"Like what?" Lan asked.
"The star field will be deeply blue shifted ahead and red shifted behind. While the stars off the sides of the route will shift through all the colors of the rainbow between blue ahead, and deep red behind." the captain explained.
Lan seemed a bit worried, about something. Finally she asked, "How long with this trip take?"
"For us, or for your families?" the captain asked.
"uh, both I guess," Lan said, "Will my Dad be old when we get back?"
The Captain paused, then asked, "Sunny, would you mind handling the explanation?"
"Certainly," came the ship disembodied voice they had come to recognize as a friend.
"Our destination lies nine light days out from the sun. That means light itself, would take nine days to get from the sun, to the Azure flame, as seen from either the Azure Flame, or the planets in the solar system. We have to spend a day or so accelerating to our top speed, and then decelerating to match our destination, so to observers in the inner system or on the Azure Flame our trip will take about twelve days total." Sun Dancer explained. She paused for a moment, where a human would take a breath, she paused to allow her audience to absorb what she'd said.
"To you here, as we accelerate to nearly light speed, time will pass more slowly for us, compared to time outside. To us, the trip will take only three days or so, most of which will be while we're accelerating." Sun Dancer completed her mini lecture.
"But then how is it that you two are so old?" Lan asked. She had been confused by the whole concept of flexible time at relativistic speeds.
"Well, first, we're not that old. The Captain is just 31 standard years, according to our calendar, according to Earths calendar he's nearing 300. This is because when we travel to a star system that is say twenty light years away, to an outside observer, our trip will take approximately twenty years, but to us, it would take about thirty-two days, plus or minus. So we would age a month, while our friends and families back home would age 20 years. If we went on a longer trip, say 100 light years, our friends and families would age 100 years, while we would only age 5 months or so."
Lan seemed to understand this, "So the faster you go, the slower your time runs, but everyone else's remains the same."
"Essentially" Sunny replied, "Perhaps we can spend some lesson time on the theory and some of the equations behind it later."
Lan seemed to suddenly loose some of her enthusiasm for the discussion.
Seeing the lecture now well over, the captain asked, "Have you two had breakfast this morning?" They both shook their heads.
"hmm, ok, let's meet in the kitchen in fifteen minutes, I'll see if our guests even bothered to get out of bed, and we can head down and eat with them in the common room. "
Joe and Lan got up and headed out of the command deck. Fifteen minutes later they met the captain in the kitchen.
"Our guests are ready for breakfast too. Let's head down to the common room and eat, I'm starving!" Captain Oliver was eager to eat.
As they entered the common room, Mr Lang was sitting in a chair, dressed in a workout suit, reading from his pad. He looked up and greeted them as they came in, "Good Morning" he said.
"Good Morning Mike" replied the captain, "Any sign of Ama and Peter?"
"Oh they'll be out now, the smell of food should get them going" Mike said.
They took seats around the central table. Each pressed a few keys on their pads, a few moments later trays with foods appeared from the table top dispenser. As they ate, a stateroom door opened and Ama appeared, dressed in a white tank top, and small white shorts. They could see that despite their long length, her arms and legs were well muscled. She took an empty seat and ordered her food.
"Good Morning" she said to the group. A few nods, and "Good Morning" from Lan.
"Where's Peter?" asked Mike.
"He was complaining about the acceleration making him too heavy, and used that excuse to stay in bed a bit longer," she explained.
"Does the gravity hurt you?" Joe asked. He'd been fascinated by the Belters since he met them briefly yesterday.
"No, not really hurt, but everything is three times heavier than it should be, including our bodies, arms legs, heads. It just takes some extra effort to move around." Ama explained.
"We've limited our acceleration to just about seventy-five percent of one g, for your comfort" the captain said.
"Thank you" Ama replied, "But we could handle up to two g's acceleration in a pinch."
Joe was impressed, "How?" he asked.
"We train in higher g environments because we have careers that take us aboard ships. Weight training mostly, Belters tend to have good cardio health, as a rule, since there's not a lot of stations that have any sort of personal transport, you have to get there under your own power, so we stay in shape." Ama explained.
As they talked Peter emerged from the stateroom. "Ah breakfast" he said, "Is that REAL bacon?" he asked, his eyes lighting up.
"Yes" said the captain, "Since we're a small crew, I felt that we could afford decent food. The Coffee is real too, Arabica, roasted and ground on board."
Peters forlorn demeanor changed quickly, he took a portion of the seat Ama was in, their thin frames making that a lot less awkward. He reached to her plate and snatched a piece of bacon.
"Hey!" she smacked his fingers, "Order your own!" but she was smiling as she said it.
Peter did order, which included a large cup of black coffee, which he held with both hands, enjoying the warmth and aroma before taking a drink.
"Oh that's good" he said, and started to eat.
A few hours later they heard Sun Dancers voice announce, "Prepare for Zero g, 5 minutes".
Joe and Lan wondered about this, they had thought that the turn over would be almost a day later. They headed to command where they found the captain. They entered and took their seats.
"What's going on?" Joe asked.
"We have to take care of a small detail. Now that we are well out from the system, and traveling at a high percent of C, we should be able to work unobserved." the captain said.
"Unobserved for what?" Lan asked.
"To get rid of our little parasite" the captain said, "The one you saw someone putting on the ship back at the shipyard."
Lans eyes widened a bit at this.
"How are we going to do that?" Joe asked.
"We're not" the captain said, "I'm sending a maintenance bot out to get a good look first, then the bot can detach the device and bring it in."
"Sunny, are you ready?" He asked.
"Yes, There is a maintenance bot on the hull now, moving towards the spot where the device is." she replied.
"What do you think it is?" Joe asked.
"A good question" the captain replied, "It could be a beacon, though that would be nearly useless given our velocity and distance. Any location data would be days or a week old when it arrived. It could be a recording device or something more nefarious. I'm less concerned with what it is, than with who wanted it put there."
"Would someone try to stop us?" Lan asked.
"A Starship is an incredibly valuable thing" the captain said,"back in the days when they were being created every few years, there were a lot of unsavory things done to acquire a controlling interest in one. People fought over them, in courts, and in space."
"People got hurt?" Lan asked
"People got killed" the captain answered.
He brought the maintenance bots video feed up on one of the command decks screens. It was moving along the hull towards the drive section, which still glowed slightly having been just shut down. They could see a small rounded lump that had been colored a close match to the hull, close but not good enough that Sun Dancer couldn't spot it right away.
The bot stopped about a meter from the device. It extended a probe and scanned it, but couldn't detect internal functions.
"Hmm" the captain sat looking at the screens indications. his arms crossed on hand on his chin, thinking. "What do you think Sunny?"
"A harmless device would not be protected from internal scans" the AI said.
"Indeed" said the captain, "Can we afford the Maintenance bot?" he asked.
"Yes, I anticipated expending this one, and had another built over night." she answered.
"Ok, go ahead and have the bot pry it off. This should be interesting" he said.
The video showed the rounded object getting a little larger, then two of the bots manipulators appeared on the screen. These flattened spatula like appendages could lift one-ton pallets. The bot slid the edges down and began to pry the device from the hull.
"I'm detecting electromagnetic emissions." Sunny said.
"A signal?" the captain asked
"If it is, it's highly encrypted. I've been recording since the start of the exercise." Sunny said.
Suddenly there was a white flash and the display went dark. They felt more than heard a low boom that seemed to echo inside the ship.
"Well" the captain exclaimed, "That was interesting,"
"A bomb?" Lan was excited and afraid at the same time, "Were they trying to kill us?"
"Unlikely, nothing could really damage the hull, and that device was too small to affect the humans aboard." Sunny explained, "More likely a self-destruct device."
A few moments later, a small panel lit up, the captain touched it, and the image of their three passengers concerned faces appeared on one of the screens.
"What's going on?" asked Mike, apparently the unofficial spokesman for the trio.
"That's a good question," Captain Oliver replied, "I'll let you know as soon as I have any information. For now, rest assured there is no danger, nor was there any to begin with."
That answer didn't seem to reassuring to the trio of faces, but when nothing more was forthcoming they closed the communication.
"Can we salvage anything?" the Captain asked.
"Im afraid not, the explosive, while not powerful, did send any component parts away from us at a high velocity, we couldn't catch them now." Sun Dancer replied.
"what about that signal?" the captain asked.
"It's highly encrypted, using a very complex algorithm." she replied.
"How long for you to decrypt it?" he asked.
"I estimate about twenty minutes." Sunny answered.
"So long?" the captain asked, feigning shock.
"I will see if I can get it done faster." she answered.
Decrypting the signal in fact, took Sunny seventeen minutes and forty-three seconds. She was pleased with that result too. The encryption was very complex, it required almost thirty percent of her processing power to finally decrypt it. Unfortunately it provided no clues to the origin of the device, the signal was all telemetry, position data, distance, velocity, and star fixes. No clues to who wanted this information bad enough to go through the trouble and expense to place the device on the hull.
A short time later, the drive was reactivated and they resumed their journey out of the solar system. The short coasting flight while they dealt with the device didn't create that much of a delay for them. They expected to see the Azure Flame sometime tomorrow morning.
End Part 12

Good day, Redditors.
I'm writing this post to share the leassons that me and my team has learned this year from spending almost $250k on facebook ads for our own e-commerce brand.
Let's get started.
I started advertising on Facebook in 2017, which is seven years ago. It feels like two years, really. Back in 2017, when the Facebook ads platform was quite new, it was hard not to get results. Businesses used stock images in their ads and made millions in sales.
Back then, if you started Facebook ads, it was like having the only restaurant in town, and just because you were the only one in town, it would always be full. This was Facebook ads back then.
Fast-forward to 2024, and it's like having 100 restaurants in a small town. Everyone is competing for the same customer. Advertising today is hard. Actually, you could say that in 2018, when there was more competition than in 2017, the same thing you could say about 2019 and 2020 (the release year of IOS 14). What's the point that I'm trying to make? Facebook ads in 2024 are easier than they will be in 2025 and 2026.
If you just look at all the legacy brands in the car industry, skin care industry, or any other industry, they still mostly use tv ads, billboard ads, and youtube ads; if they are advertising on Facebook, their ads suck. That being said, direct-to-consumer or any other small business owner still has time to get it. Yes, it's more challenging but will only become more complex.
That being said, let's jump to the lessons I have learned this year, and hopefully, you can take some nuggets away from this post.

1. THE CREATIVE

This year, we have tested more than 400 ad creatives for our brand, and we still haven't done enough testing. Content really is the king. Last year, I wrote about the need to test at least five creatives a week. That's long gone. The tiktokization is real in Facebook ads as well. The more you test, the faster you find winning ads that can scale.
This year's learning on creatives is that best-performing ads don't live as long as they used to. In 2023, we still had ads from 2022 that were the best-performing ads for some clients. This year, it's way different. The life of the best-performing ad has gone down. This means we must create more ad variations, especially when we find a winning ad angle.
I would suggest anyone spend at least 30 minutes on Instagram reels and look at the content that interests them. Then, look at your Facebook feed the next day; you will see tons of ads about the thing that you watched on the Instagram reel the previous day.
Creating just few ads a month is not enough. Back in 2017 you could run 2 ads for the whole year and just print money. It's 2024 and two ads should be launched every day.
So, how can you test hundreds of ads a month?
2) THE RESEARCH
Every small, medium, service-based, direct-to-consumer business owner, marketing director, and CMO has a major advantage over big legacy brands.
It is the ability to connect with your core customers on social media. The way to do that is by researching. Every business has a medium—and large-size competitor in its market. Go to their website, socials, and Google reviews and look for 1, 2, and 3-star reviews about their business.
This is where you can find a lot of golden nuggets on what customers don't like about their product, their customer service, their offer, their service, and so on.
Use that information and create ad content that shows that your product service does not have ".... these problems."
Let's just imagine that you are selling premium quality shoes, and one of your competitors is doing the same, but many of their 2-star reviews say that the competitors' shoes are causing blisters on your feet. You can use that information and your ads to say "that your shoes will protect the customer's feet from blisters."
If you have a better product, some of your competitors use that information and ad creatives around that. Before you do that, read every single 1, 2, and 3-star review and note down what the review was about.
You will be able to take away at least 10+ ad angle ideas from these reviews, and you can create hundreds of ads that you can test.
Back in 2018, ad testing was easy. You created ten ads, each of them with a different messege. 4 for the top of the funnel. Four for the middle of the funnel. 2 for the bottom of the funnel, and you could run it for the rest of the year.
Right now, you need to do a lot of research to truly understand your customers so you can create ads that speak to them. We ran through our competitors this year just by creating ads that spoke to our customers' desires and needs.
Every two weeks, we check our competitor's bad reviews to see if there is a new ad angle that we could test.
Have you seen legacy brand car ads? All of them are the same. Car driving down the hill, pulling up at their house, a guy or girl walking into the house. Every ad is the same, a lot of times when we see the ad we don't even know which car brand it is because it's all the same.
Same thing is happening right now with Facebook ads. All of the ads look the same, speak to the same people and this makes it harder to get results.
The leasson that we learning this year on research is that it needs to be done daily. There is so much information posted every day on our competiors, or the research studdies that has recently be done that we cannot afford to do marketing research once a year. It needs to be done daily at least for one hour. Those who will do it will get better results with their facebook ads.
3) TESTING
In the past two months I have seen far to many ad account audits and I can tell that 95% of the ad accounts don't know what ad testing even means.
I have seen campaigns named DYNAMIC CREATIVE TEST, but when I look at the ad set level, the dynamic creative is off. The ads inside the ad level are different, 3 different creatives, 2 different copies, the same headline. I ask what exactly are you testing and the answer is always " ads" But what exactly are you testing? " I don't know". That pretty much summs up a lot of advertisers today.
How do we do ad testing? We create one ad angle based on one desire. In this ad angle, we have three images with the same messege ( each image has a different background or any other changing variable), two ad copies, and two headlines. This is a dynamic creative ad.
Once we get results, we break it down by best performing ad creatve, ad copy and headline. Then we create improvement creative variations to the best creative, best ad copy and best headline under a new dynamic creative. Then we repeat the process again. And again, and again. Usually about 10 times. Sometimes even 20 times until we hit a really good performing ad angle.
Here are some an ad angles that always work - "US VS THEM" , "Founders Story", "2(3,4,5) Reasons Why X", "Features Benefits" "Negative Humor". All fo these marketing angles work. It's impossible for them not to work if you put in the effort and find the winning ad combination for these ad angles.
And you can find it by testing. In 2023, we tested one improvement and two new ad angles every week.
This year, we will test at least three improvements on the best-performing ad angles and 5 new ad angle tests every week.
This goes back to what I mentioned before: the more you test, the faster you find winners and the quicker you can scale your ads. We even use AI like Claude for ad copy, script writing, headline writing. We also use photoshop ai for more image creative creation. This helps us speed up the process. One creative person with understanding on how ads need to look like can put out the same amount of ads as four people working full time daily without Ai.
One direct-response copywriter with AI can write as many ad copies daily as four people would write in a week.
Even for some of our clients, we have competitors who literally test 100 ads every week, and it has been a challenge to keep up.
To sum up the lesson, last year, we thought that we tested enough this year, and today, we think that we don't test enough, so we're looking for ways to test 50 creatives a week.
4) SCALING THE WINNING TESTS.
Here are some quick tips on how to scale your winning video ads.
The first thing that we do is try to show the same video message, but in a different way. Then we filmed the exact same video but in a different environment. Then we also introduce different age groups; if your product appeals to 18-65, then you need to have people in your ads that are in those age groups. One ad can be a person who's 19, then another ad is 24, 30, 35, 40, 46, 50+, and so on. People resonate with people in their age group. It's hard for a 55-year-old to resonate with a 19-year-old who does not share the same problems.
If you find a winning ad don't sit on it, don't let it die out, scale the creative by creating more of it that would appeal do different audiences.
It's a common mistake to rely solely on increasing ad spend when a winning creative starts to lose its effectiveness. Instead, consider creating more variations of the ad, especially if the message is still generating results. Don't be afraid to create 50 or more variations of the winning ad. Remember, it's not easy to find a winning creative, so it's important to make the most of it when you do.
Sometimes, it takes us six weeks to find a winning ad messege when we test 50+ ads. Once we find it, we make sure that we squeeze out all the juice from that winning ad messege.
5) ADVERTORIALS, LANDING PAGES ETC.
I have mentioned this in other posts. This is this years biggest leasson. Test more landing pages, advertorials and listicles. We all know that the product page, website always needs to be improved and the more you improve the better conversion you can get.
But what a lot of people overlook is testing separate landing pages and advertorials.
Especially landing pages based on best performing ads. If you talk about a problem in the ad and then just randomly send people to your website you will get sales. But if you talk about the problem and send people to a landing page that goes deeper inside the problem that the customer might be facing and educates them that this one of the best and cost effective solutions out there your ads will get even more conversions.
I almost feel ashamed that last year, we did not do this on the scale that we do now.
We also launch a new landing page or advertorial test for our past week's best-performing ads every week. To continue to the marketing messege. This strategy has been so impactful that we will launch a new sales campaign just for landing pages alone.
6) CREATING SOCIAL CONTENT.
It's not enough to create ads. You also need to create content that you can publish on your feed to get organic engagement. Getting organic engagement boosts your ads. Also, the best organic posts can be used as ads to increase engagement.
How many content pieces do you need to post? Ideally? Ten reel videos a day. I do understand that this sounds wild, but here I am. We are not posting ten videos a day yet.
Suppose we go back to understand what Facebook and Instagram are trying to optimize for. They want the users to spend as much time as possible on their platform.
The only way a user can spend as much time as possible is to consume content. If you publish content that people like to watch, educational, humorous, and showcase content around your product or service, you will get a boost from Facebook and Instagram algorithms. Your ads will get lower CPM; lower CPM = lower CAC. Lower CAC = More profit or more money for advertising to scale your business.
We started posting one post daily and saw a decrease in CPM and CAC. Also, engagement on our social media increased. Once people see the ad, they can click on the Facebook or Instagram page, and there's actually some good content that people like to watch, which helps Facebook's algorithm.
7) ENGAGING AD CONTENT
The more engaging the ads are, the more meta algorithms will push them. By engaging ads, I mean they need to get reactions, comments, and shares.
Here's a simple yet effective strategy to boost ad engagement: Start by replying to comments, and then end your response with a question. This encourages the person to continue the conversation in the comments section, thereby increasing engagement.
It's a simple equation: the more comments you get on your ads, the lower your CPMs will be. Comments are a clear indicator of engagement, and higher engagement leads to lower costs.
I just checked the reports for our brands on our best-performing ads, and all of them had 100+ comments.
Imagine seeing an ad without any likes, comments, or shares. Now, imagine seeing an ad with hundreds of comments, shares, and hundreds of reactions.
Seeing an ad with so much engagement alone sparks interest to see it what the whole fuss is about.
You can also comment first under the ad using your personal profile.
One of our customer service teams' tasks is to reply to ad comments within 30 minutes of the posting the comment. Replying fast increases the chance for them to reply back, which boosts your ad.
8) SUMMARY
Compared to all the previous years, this year has been the hardest in advertising, especially after recent changes in meta-algorithms going heavily into ad content optimization.
This meant that we had to be more strategic about testing and more dialed into research than ever. If you had told me in 2018 that you need to test 50 ads a month and do at least 2 hours of research weekly, I would have told you to go F**** yourself. I have succeeded with my five ads per ad account, and I'm good.
Looking back, this humbles me and makes me think and ask the question - "what will be required to get success with Facebook ads in 2026?" This is only two years from now? One thing I know for sure is that it will be more challenging than it is now.
Even writing this right now fuels me with an urgency to build things bigger and faster. Cause in two years there is going to be 400 resturants packed in a small town battling for the same customer.
Thanks for reading. I hope that you enjoyed this post. See you in the next one.

Good day, Redditors.
I'm writing this post to share the leassons that me and my team has learned this year from spending almost $250k on facebook ads for our own e-commerce brand.
Let's get started.
I started advertising on Facebook in 2017, which is seven years ago. It feels like two years, really. Back in 2017, when the Facebook ads platform was quite new, it was hard not to get results. Businesses used stock images in their ads and made millions in sales.
Back then, if you started Facebook ads, it was like having the only restaurant in town, and just because you were the only one in town, it would always be full. This was Facebook ads back then.
Fast-forward to 2024, and it's like having 100 restaurants in a small town. Everyone is competing for the same customer. Advertising today is hard. Actually, you could say that in 2018, when there was more competition than in 2017, the same thing you could say about 2019 and 2020 (the release year of IOS 14). What's the point that I'm trying to make? Facebook ads in 2024 are easier than they will be in 2025 and 2026.
If you just look at all the legacy brands in the car industry, skin care industry, or any other industry, they still mostly use tv ads, billboard ads, and youtube ads; if they are advertising on Facebook, their ads suck. That being said, direct-to-consumer or any other small business owner still has time to get it. Yes, it's more challenging but will only become more complex.
That being said, let's jump to the lessons I have learned this year, and hopefully, you can take some nuggets away from this post.
THE CREATIVE
This year, we have tested more than 400 ad creatives for our brand, and we still haven't done enough testing. Content really is the king. Last year, I wrote about the need to test at least five creatives a week. That's long gone. The tiktokization is real in Facebook ads as well. The more you test, the faster you find winning ads that can scale.
This year's learning on creatives is that best-performing ads don't live as long as they used to. In 2023, we still had ads from 2022 that were the best-performing ads for some clients. This year, it's way different. The life of the best-performing ad has gone down. This means we must create more ad variations, especially when we find a winning ad angle.
I would suggest anyone spend at least 30 minutes on Instagram reels and look at the content that interests them. Then, look at your Facebook feed the next day; you will see tons of ads about the thing that you watched on the Instagram reel the previous day.
Creating just few ads a month is not enough. Back in 2017 you could run 2 ads for the whole year and just print money. It's 2024 and two ads should be launched every day.
So, how can you test hundreds of ads a month?
2) THE RESEARCH
Every small, medium, service-based, direct-to-consumer business owner, marketing director, and CMO has a major advantage over big legacy brands.
It is the ability to connect with your core customers on social media. The way to do that is by researching. Every business has a medium—and large-size competitor in its market. Go to their website, socials, and Google reviews and look for 1, 2, and 3-star reviews about their business.
This is where you can find a lot of golden nuggets on what customers don't like about their product, their customer service, their offer, their service, and so on.
Use that information and create ad content that shows that your product service does not have ".... these problems."
Let's just imagine that you are selling premium quality shoes, and one of your competitors is doing the same, but many of their 2-star reviews say that the competitors' shoes are causing blisters on your feet. You can use that information and your ads to say "that your shoes will protect the customer's feet from blisters."
If you have a better product, some of your competitors use that information and ad creatives around that. Before you do that, read every single 1, 2, and 3-star review and note down what the review was about.
You will be able to take away at least 10+ ad angle ideas from these reviews, and you can create hundreds of ads that you can test.
Back in 2018, ad testing was easy. You created ten ads, each of them with a different messege. 4 for the top of the funnel. Four for the middle of the funnel. 2 for the bottom of the funnel, and you could run it for the rest of the year.
Right now, you need to do a lot of research to truly understand your customers so you can create ads that speak to them. We ran through our competitors this year just by creating ads that spoke to our customers' desires and needs.
Every two weeks, we check our competitor's bad reviews to see if there is a new ad angle that we could test.
Have you seen legacy brand car ads? All of them are the same. Car driving down the hill, pulling up at their house, a guy or girl walking into the house. Every ad is the same, a lot of times when we see the ad we don't even know which car brand it is because it's all the same.
Same thing is happening right now with Facebook ads. All of the ads look the same, speak to the same people and this makes it harder to get results.
The leasson that we learning this year on research is that it needs to be done daily. There is so much information posted every day on our competiors, or the research studdies that has recently be done that we cannot afford to do marketing research once a year. It needs to be done daily at least for one hour. Those who will do it will get better results with their facebook ads.
3) TESTING
In the past two months I have seen far to many ad account audits and I can tell that 95% of the ad accounts don't know what ad testing even means.
I have seen campaigns named DYNAMIC CREATIVE TEST, but when I look at the ad set level, the dynamic creative is off. The ads inside the ad level are different, 3 different creatives, 2 different copies, the same headline. I ask what exactly are you testing and the answer is always " ads" But what exactly are you testing? " I don't know". That pretty much summs up a lot of advertisers today.
How do we do ad testing? We create one ad angle based on one desire. In this ad angle, we have three images with the same messege ( each image has a different background or any other changing variable), two ad copies, and two headlines. This is a dynamic creative ad.
Once we get results, we break them down by best-performing ad creative, ad copy, and headline. Then, we create improved creative variations to the best creative, best ad copy, and best headline under a new dynamic creative. Then, we repeat the process again. And again, and again. Usually, about 10 times. Sometimes even 20 times until we hit a really good performing ad angle.
Here are some an ad angles that always work - "US VS THEM" , "Founders Story", "2(3,4,5) Reasons Why X", "Features Benefits" "Negative Humor". All fo these marketing angles work. It's impossible for them not to work if you put in the effort and find the winning ad combination for these ad angles.
And you can find it by testing. In 2023, we tested one improvement and two new ad angles every week.
This year, we will test at least three improvements on the best-performing ad angles and 5 new ad angle tests every week.
This goes back to what I mentioned before: the more you test, the faster you find winners and the quicker you can scale your ads. We even use AI like Claude for ad copy, script writing, headline writing. We also use photoshop ai for more image creative creation. This helps us speed up the process. One creative person with understanding on how ads need to look like can put out the same amount of ads as four people working full time daily without Ai.
One direct-response copywriter with AI can write as many ad copies daily as four people would write in a week.
Even for some of our clients, we have competitors who literally test 100 ads every week, and it has been a challenge to keep up.
To sum up the lesson, last year, we thought that we tested enough this year, and today, we think that we don't test enough, so we're looking for ways to test 50 creatives a week.
4) SCALING THE WINNING TESTS.
Here are some quick tips on how to scale your winning video ads.
The first thing that we do is try to show the same video message but in a different way. Then we filmed the exact same video but in a different environment. Then we also introduce different age groups; if your product appeals to 18-65, then you need to have people in your ads that are in those age groups. One ad can be a person who's 19, then another ad is 24, 30, 35, 40, 46, 50+, and so on. People resonate with people in their age group. It's hard for a 55-year-old to resonate with a 19-year-old who does not share the same problems.
If you find a winning ad don't sit on it, don't let it die out, scale the creative by creating more of it that would appeal do different audiences.
It's a common mistake to rely solely on increasing ad spend when a winning creative starts to lose its effectiveness. Instead, consider creating more variations of the ad, especially if the message is still generating results. Don't be afraid to create 50 or more variations of the winning ad. Remember, it's not easy to find a winning creative, so it's important to make the most of it when you do.
Sometimes, it takes us six weeks to find a winning ad messege when we test 50+ ads. Once we find it, we make sure that we squeeze out all the juice from that winning ad messege.
5) ADVERTORIALS, LANDING PAGES ETC.
I have mentioned this in other posts. This is this years biggest leasson. Test more landing pages, advertorials and listicles. We all know that the product page, website always needs to be improved and the more you improve the better conversion you can get.
But what a lot of people overlook is testing separate landing pages and advertorials.
Especially landing pages based on best performing ads. If you talk about a problem in the ad and then just randomly send people to your website you will get sales. But if you talk about the problem and send people to a landing page that goes deeper inside the problem that the customer might be facing and educates them that this one of the best and cost effective solutions out there your ads will get even more conversions.
I almost feel ashamed that last year, we did not do this on the scale that we do now.
We also launch a new landing page or advertorial test for our past week's best-performing ads. To continue to the marketing messege. This strategy has been so impactful that we will launch a new sales campaign just for landing pages alone.
6) CREATING SOCIAL CONTENT.
It's not enough to create ads. You also need to create content that you can publish on your feed to get organic engagement. Getting organic engagement boosts your ads. Also, the best organic posts can be used as ads to increase engagement.
How many content pieces do you need to post? Ideally? Ten reel videos a day. I do understand that this sounds wild, but here I am. We are not posting ten videos a day yet.
Suppose we go back to understand what Facebook and Instagram are trying to optimize for. They want the users to spend as much time as possible on their platform.
The only way a user can spend as much time as possible is to consume content. If you publish content that people like to watch, educational, humorous, and showcase content around your product or service, you will get a boost from Facebook and Instagram algorithms. Your ads will get lower CPM; lower CPM = lower CAC. Lower CAC = More profit or more money for advertising to scale your business.
We started posting one post daily and saw a decrease in CPM and CAC. Also, engagement on our social media increased. Once people see the ad, they can click on the Facebook or Instagram page, and there's actually some good content that people like to watch, which helps Facebook's algorithm.
7) ENGAGING AD CONTENT
When we create ads we also think about what would be the engagement be like. All of of best performing ads for our brand and our clients are really engaging.
The more engaging the ads are, the more meta algorithms will push them. By engaging ads, I mean they need to get reactions, comments, and shares.
Here's a simple yet effective strategy to boost ad engagement: Start by replying to comments, and then end your response with a question. This encourages the person to continue the conversation in the comments section, increasing engagement.
It's a simple equation: the more comments you get on your ads, the lower your CPMs will be. Comments are a clear indicator of engagement, and higher engagement leads to lower costs.
I just checked the reports for our brands on our best-performing ads, and all of them had 100+ comments. Imagine seeing an ad without any likes, comments, or shares. Now, imagine seeing an ad with hundreds of comments, shares, and hundreds of reactions.
Seeing an ad with so much engagement alone sparks interest in seeing the whole fuss. You can also comment first under the ad using your profile.
One of our customer service teams' tasks is to reply to ad comments within 30 minutes of posting the comment. Replying fast increases the chance for them to reply back, which boosts your ad.
8) SUMMARY
Compared to all the previous years, this year has been the hardest in advertising, especially after recent changes in meta-algorithms going heavily into ad content optimization.
This meant that we had to be more strategic about testing and more dialed into research than ever. If you had told me in 2018 that you need to test 50 ads a month and do at least 2 hours of research weekly, I would have told you to go F**** yourself. I have succeeded with my five ads per ad account, and I'm good.
Looking back, this humbles me and makes me think and ask the question - "what will be required to get success with Facebook ads in 2026?" This is only two years from now? One thing I know for sure is that it will be more challenging than it is now.
Even writing this right now fuels me with an urgency to build things bigger and faster. Cause in two years there is going to be 400 resturants packed in a small town battling for the same customer.
Thanks for reading. I hope that you enjoyed this post. See you in the next one.

Good day, Redditors.
I'm writing this post to share the leassons that me and my team has learned this year from spending almost $250k on facebook ads for our own e-commerce brand.
Let's get started.
I started advertising on Facebook in 2017, which is seven years ago. It feels like two years, really. Back in 2017, when the Facebook ads platform was quite new, it was hard not to get results. Businesses used stock images in their ads and made millions in sales.
Back then, if you started Facebook ads, it was like having the only restaurant in town, and just because you were the only one in town, it would always be full. This was Facebook ads back then.
Fast-forward to 2024, and it's like having 100 restaurants in a small town. Everyone is competing for the same customer. Advertising today is hard. Actually, you could say that in 2018, when there was more competition than in 2017, the same thing you could say about 2019 and 2020 (the release year of IOS 14). What's the point that I'm trying to make? Facebook ads in 2024 are easier than they will be in 2025 and 2026.
If you just look at all the legacy brands in the car industry, skin care industry, or any other industry, they still mostly use tv ads, billboard ads, and youtube ads; if they are advertising on Facebook, their ads suck. That being said, direct-to-consumer or any other small business owner still has time to get it. Yes, it's more challenging but will only become more complex.
That being said, let's jump to the lessons I have learned this year, and hopefully, you can take some nuggets away from this post.
THE CREATIVE
This year, we have tested more than 400 ad creatives for our brand, and we still haven't done enough testing. Content really is the king. Last year, I wrote about the need to test at least five creatives a week. That's long gone. The tiktokization is real in Facebook ads as well. The more you test, the faster you find winning ads that can scale.
This year's learning on creatives is that best-performing ads don't live as long as they used to. In 2023, we still had ads from 2022 that were the best-performing ads for some clients. This year, it's way different. The life of the best-performing ad has gone down. This means we must create more ad variations, especially when we find a winning ad angle.
I would suggest anyone spend at least 30 minutes on Instagram reels and look at the content that interests them. Then, look at your Facebook feed the next day; you will see tons of ads about the thing that you watched on the Instagram reel the previous day.
Creating just few ads a month is not enough. Back in 2017 you could run 2 ads for the whole year and just print money. It's 2024 and two ads should be launched every day.
So, how can you test hundreds of ads a month?
2) THE RESEARCH
Every small, medium, service-based, direct-to-consumer business owner, marketing director, and CMO has a major advantage over big legacy brands.
It is the ability to connect with your core customers on social media. The way to do that is by researching. Every business has a medium—and large-size competitor in its market. Go to their website, socials, and Google reviews and look for 1, 2, and 3-star reviews about their business.
This is where you can find a lot of golden nuggets on what customers don't like about their product, their customer service, their offer, their service, and so on.
Use that information and create ad content that shows that your product service does not have ".... these problems."
Let's just imagine that you are selling premium quality shoes, and one of your competitors is doing the same, but many of their 2-star reviews say that the competitors' shoes are causing blisters on your feet. You can use that information and your ads to say "that your shoes will protect the customer's feet from blisters."
If you have a better product, some of your competitors use that information and ad creatives around that. Before you do that, read every single 1, 2, and 3-star review and note down what the review was about.
You will be able to take away at least 10+ ad angle ideas from these reviews, and you can create hundreds of ads that you can test.
Back in 2018, ad testing was easy. You created ten ads, each of them with a different messege. 4 for the top of the funnel. Four for the middle of the funnel. 2 for the bottom of the funnel, and you could run it for the rest of the year.
Right now, you need to do a lot of research to truly understand your customers so you can create ads that speak to them. We ran through our competitors this year just by creating ads that spoke to our customers' desires and needs.
Every two weeks, we check our competitor's bad reviews to see if there is a new ad angle that we could test.
Have you seen legacy brand car ads? All of them are the same. Car driving down the hill, pulling up at their house, a guy or girl walking into the house. Every ad is the same, a lot of times when we see the ad we don't even know which car brand it is because it's all the same.
Same thing is happening right now with Facebook ads. All of the ads look the same, speak to the same people and this makes it harder to get results.
The leasson that we learning this year on research is that it needs to be done daily. There is so much information posted every day on our competiors, or the research studdies that has recently be done that we cannot afford to do marketing research once a year. It needs to be done daily at least for one hour. Those who will do it will get better results with their facebook ads.
3) TESTING
In the past two months I have seen far to many ad account audits and I can tell that 95% of the ad accounts don't know what ad testing even means.
I have seen campaigns named DYNAMIC CREATIVE TEST, but when I look at the ad set level, the dynamic creative is off. The ads inside the ad level are different, 3 different creatives, 2 different copies, the same headline. I ask what exactly are you testing and the answer is always " ads" But what exactly are you testing? " I don't know". That pretty much summs up a lot of advertisers today.
How do we do ad testing? We create one ad angle based on one desire. In this ad angle, we have three images with the same messege ( each image has a different background or any other changing variable), two ad copies, and two headlines. This is a dynamic creative ad.
Once we get results, we break them down by best-performing ad creative, ad copy, and headline. Then, we create improved creative variations to the best creative, best ad copy, and best headline under a new dynamic creative. Then, we repeat the process again. And again, and again. Usually, about 10 times. Sometimes even 20 times until we hit a really good performing ad angle.
Here are some an ad angles that always work - "US VS THEM" , "Founders Story", "2(3,4,5) Reasons Why X", "Features Benefits" "Negative Humor". All fo these marketing angles work. It's impossible for them not to work if you put in the effort and find the winning ad combination for these ad angles.
And you can find it by testing. In 2023, we tested one improvement and two new ad angles every week.
This year, we will test at least three improvements on the best-performing ad angles and 5 new ad angle tests every week.
This goes back to what I mentioned before: the more you test, the faster you find winners and the quicker you can scale your ads. We even use AI like Claude for ad copy, script writing, headline writing. We also use photoshop ai for more image creative creation. This helps us speed up the process. One creative person with understanding on how ads need to look like can put out the same amount of ads as four people working full time daily without Ai.
One direct-response copywriter with AI can write as many ad copies daily as four people would write in a week.
Even for some of our clients, we have competitors who literally test 100 ads every week, and it has been a challenge to keep up.
To sum up the lesson, last year, we thought that we tested enough this year, and today, we think that we don't test enough, so we're looking for ways to test 50 creatives a week.
4) SCALING THE WINNING TESTS.
Here are some quick tips on how to scale your winning video ads.
The first thing that we do is try to show the same video message but in a different way. Then we filmed the exact same video but in a different environment. Then we also introduce different age groups; if your product appeals to 18-65, then you need to have people in your ads that are in those age groups. One ad can be a person who's 19, then another ad is 24, 30, 35, 40, 46, 50+, and so on. People resonate with people in their age group. It's hard for a 55-year-old to resonate with a 19-year-old who does not share the same problems.
If you find a winning ad don't sit on it, don't let it die out, scale the creative by creating more of it that would appeal do different audiences.
It's a common mistake to rely solely on increasing ad spend when a winning creative starts to lose its effectiveness. Instead, consider creating more variations of the ad, especially if the message is still generating results. Don't be afraid to create 50 or more variations of the winning ad. Remember, it's not easy to find a winning creative, so it's important to make the most of it when you do.
Sometimes, it takes us six weeks to find a winning ad messege when we test 50+ ads. Once we find it, we make sure that we squeeze out all the juice from that winning ad messege.
5) ADVERTORIALS, LANDING PAGES ETC.
I have mentioned this in other posts. This is this years biggest leasson. Test more landing pages, advertorials and listicles. We all know that the product page, website always needs to be improved and the more you improve the better conversion you can get.
But what a lot of people overlook is testing separate landing pages and advertorials.
Especially landing pages based on best performing ads. If you talk about a problem in the ad and then just randomly send people to your website you will get sales. But if you talk about the problem and send people to a landing page that goes deeper inside the problem that the customer might be facing and educates them that this one of the best and cost effective solutions out there your ads will get even more conversions.
I almost feel ashamed that last year, we did not do this on the scale that we do now.
We also launch a new landing page or advertorial test for our past week's best-performing ads. To continue to the marketing messege. This strategy has been so impactful that we will launch a new sales campaign just for landing pages alone.
6) CREATING SOCIAL CONTENT.
It's not enough to create ads. You also need to create content that you can publish on your feed to get organic engagement. Getting organic engagement boosts your ads. Also, the best organic posts can be used as ads to increase engagement.
How many content pieces do you need to post? Ideally? Ten reel videos a day. I do understand that this sounds wild, but here I am. We are not posting ten videos a day yet.
Suppose we go back to understand what Facebook and Instagram are trying to optimize for. They want the users to spend as much time as possible on their platform.
The only way a user can spend as much time as possible is to consume content. If you publish content that people like to watch, educational, humorous, and showcase content around your product or service, you will get a boost from Facebook and Instagram algorithms. Your ads will get lower CPM; lower CPM = lower CAC. Lower CAC = More profit or more money for advertising to scale your business.
We started posting one post daily and saw a decrease in CPM and CAC. Also, engagement on our social media increased. Once people see the ad, they can click on the Facebook or Instagram page, and there's actually some good content that people like to watch, which helps Facebook's algorithm.
7) ENGAGING AD CONTENT
When we create ads we also think about what would be the engagement be like. All of of best performing ads for our brand and our clients are really engaging.
The more engaging the ads are, the more meta algorithms will push them. By engaging ads, I mean they need to get reactions, comments, and shares.
Here's a simple yet effective strategy to boost ad engagement: Start by replying to comments, and then end your response with a question. This encourages the person to continue the conversation in the comments section, increasing engagement.
It's a simple equation: the more comments you get on your ads, the lower your CPMs will be. Comments are a clear indicator of engagement, and higher engagement leads to lower costs.
I just checked the reports for our brands on our best-performing ads, and all of them had 100+ comments. Imagine seeing an ad without any likes, comments, or shares. Now, imagine seeing an ad with hundreds of comments, shares, and hundreds of reactions.
Seeing an ad with so much engagement alone sparks interest in seeing the whole fuss. You can also comment first under the ad using your profile.
One of our customer service teams' tasks is to reply to ad comments within 30 minutes of posting the comment. Replying fast increases the chance for them to reply back, which boosts your ad.
8) SUMMARY
Compared to all the previous years, this year has been the hardest in advertising, especially after recent changes in meta-algorithms going heavily into ad content optimization.
This meant that we had to be more strategic about testing and more dialed into research than ever. If you had told me in 2018 that you need to test 50 ads a month and do at least 2 hours of research weekly, I would have told you to go F**** yourself. I have succeeded with my five ads per ad account, and I'm good.
Looking back, this humbles me and makes me think and ask the question - "what will be required to get success with Facebook ads in 2026?" This is only two years from now? One thing I know for sure is that it will be more challenging than it is now.
Even writing this right now fuels me with an urgency to build things bigger and faster. Cause in two years there is going to be 400 resturants packed in a small town battling for the same customer.
Thanks for reading. I hope that you enjoyed this post. See you in the next one.

It doesn’t matter how hard I try with people. I can be the nicest and caring and most understanding and gentle I can possibly be.
I will always be left behind. Every person (friendships, relationships, my dad, other family). I can only make it so far with them. But they’ll always leave.
I truly believe I was born to be alone. Why? Maybe I’m an npc in someone else’s life. My purpose of existence was to be a lesson for someone else.
I’m constantly crying, cleaning in the background, smiling and acting like everything is fine. But deep down I’m completely alone and isolated. I have a disorder and I’ve been fighting to stay alive.
I don’t want anyone else. Just the people I’ve bled for and give all my energy to.

Good day, Redditors.
I'm writing this post to share the leassons that me and my team has learned this year from spending almost $250k on facebook ads for our own e-commerce brand.
Let's get started.
I started advertising on Facebook in 2017, which is seven years ago. It feels like two years, really. Back in 2017, when the Facebook ads platform was quite new, it was hard not to get results. Businesses used stock images in their ads and made millions in sales.
Back then, if you started Facebook ads, it was like having the only restaurant in town, and just because you were the only one in town, it would always be full. This was Facebook ads back then.
Fast-forward to 2024, and it's like having 100 restaurants in a small town. Everyone is competing for the same customer. Advertising today is hard. Actually, you could say that in 2018, when there was more competition than in 2017, the same thing you could say about 2019 and 2020 (the release year of IOS 14). What's the point that I'm trying to make? Facebook ads in 2024 are easier than they will be in 2025 and 2026.
If you just look at all the legacy brands in the car industry, skin care industry, or any other industry, they still mostly use tv ads, billboard ads, and youtube ads; if they are advertising on Facebook, their ads suck. That being said, direct-to-consumer or any other small business owner still has time to get it. Yes, it's more challenging but will only become more complex.
That being said, let's jump to the lessons I have learned this year, and hopefully, you can take some nuggets away from this post.
THE CREATIVE
This year, we have tested more than 400 ad creatives for our brand, and we still haven't done enough testing. Content really is the king. Last year, I wrote about the need to test at least five creatives a week. That's long gone. The tiktokization is real in Facebook ads as well. The more you test, the faster you find winning ads that can scale.
This year's learning on creatives is that best-performing ads don't live as long as they used to. In 2023, we still had ads from 2022 that were the best-performing ads for some clients. This year, it's way different. The life of the best-performing ad has gone down. This means we must create more ad variations, especially when we find a winning ad angle.
I would suggest anyone spend at least 30 minutes on Instagram reels and look at the content that interests them. Then, look at your Facebook feed the next day; you will see tons of ads about the thing that you watched on the Instagram reel the previous day.
Creating just few ads a month is not enough. Back in 2017 you could run 2 ads for the whole year and just print money. It's 2024 and two ads should be launched every day.
So, how can you test hundreds of ads a month?
2) THE RESEARCH
Every small, medium, service-based, direct-to-consumer business owner, marketing director, and CMO has a major advantage over big legacy brands.
It is the ability to connect with your core customers on social media. The way to do that is by researching. Every business has a medium—and large-size competitor in its market. Go to their website, socials, and Google reviews and look for 1, 2, and 3-star reviews about their business.
This is where you can find a lot of golden nuggets on what customers don't like about their product, their customer service, their offer, their service, and so on.
Use that information and create ad content that shows that your product service does not have ".... these problems."
Let's just imagine that you are selling premium quality shoes, and one of your competitors is doing the same, but many of their 2-star reviews say that the competitors' shoes are causing blisters on your feet. You can use that information and your ads to say "that your shoes will protect the customer's feet from blisters."
If you have a better product, some of your competitors use that information and ad creatives around that. Before you do that, read every single 1, 2, and 3-star review and note down what the review was about.
You will be able to take away at least 10+ ad angle ideas from these reviews, and you can create hundreds of ads that you can test.
Back in 2018, ad testing was easy. You created ten ads, each of them with a different messege. 4 for the top of the funnel. Four for the middle of the funnel. 2 for the bottom of the funnel, and you could run it for the rest of the year.
Right now, you need to do a lot of research to truly understand your customers so you can create ads that speak to them. We ran through our competitors this year just by creating ads that spoke to our customers' desires and needs.
Every two weeks, we check our competitor's bad reviews to see if there is a new ad angle that we could test.
Have you seen legacy brand car ads? All of them are the same. Car driving down the hill, pulling up at their house, a guy or girl walking into the house. Every ad is the same, a lot of times when we see the ad we don't even know which car brand it is because it's all the same.
Same thing is happening right now with Facebook ads. All of the ads look the same, speak to the same people and this makes it harder to get results.
The leasson that we learning this year on research is that it needs to be done daily. There is so much information posted every day on our competiors, or the research studdies that has recently be done that we cannot afford to do marketing research once a year. It needs to be done daily at least for one hour. Those who will do it will get better results with their facebook ads.
3) TESTING
In the past two months I have seen far to many ad account audits and I can tell that 95% of the ad accounts don't know what ad testing even means.
I have seen campaigns named DYNAMIC CREATIVE TEST, but when I look at the ad set level, the dynamic creative is off. The ads inside the ad level are different, 3 different creatives, 2 different copies, the same headline. I ask what exactly are you testing and the answer is always " ads" But what exactly are you testing? " I don't know". That pretty much summs up a lot of advertisers today.
How do we do ad testing? We create one ad angle based on one desire. In this ad angle, we have three images with the same messege ( each image has a different background or any other changing variable), two ad copies, and two headlines. This is a dynamic creative ad.
Once we get results, we break them down by best-performing ad creative, ad copy, and headline. Then, we create improved creative variations to the best creative, best ad copy, and best headline under a new dynamic creative. Then, we repeat the process again. And again, and again. Usually, about 10 times. Sometimes even 20 times until we hit a really good performing ad angle.
Here are some an ad angles that always work - "US VS THEM" , "Founders Story", "2(3,4,5) Reasons Why X", "Features Benefits" "Negative Humor". All fo these marketing angles work. It's impossible for them not to work if you put in the effort and find the winning ad combination for these ad angles.
And you can find it by testing. In 2023, we tested one improvement and two new ad angles every week.
This year, we will test at least three improvements on the best-performing ad angles and 5 new ad angle tests every week.
This goes back to what I mentioned before: the more you test, the faster you find winners and the quicker you can scale your ads. We even use AI like Claude for ad copy, script writing, headline writing. We also use photoshop ai for more image creative creation. This helps us speed up the process. One creative person with understanding on how ads need to look like can put out the same amount of ads as four people working full time daily without Ai.
One direct-response copywriter with AI can write as many ad copies daily as four people would write in a week.
Even for some of our clients, we have competitors who literally test 100 ads every week, and it has been a challenge to keep up.
To sum up the lesson, last year, we thought that we tested enough this year, and today, we think that we don't test enough, so we're looking for ways to test 50 creatives a week.
4) SCALING THE WINNING TESTS.
Here are some quick tips on how to scale your winning video ads.
The first thing that we do is try to show the same video message but in a different way. Then we filmed the exact same video but in a different environment. Then we also introduce different age groups; if your product appeals to 18-65, then you need to have people in your ads that are in those age groups. One ad can be a person who's 19, then another ad is 24, 30, 35, 40, 46, 50+, and so on. People resonate with people in their age group. It's hard for a 55-year-old to resonate with a 19-year-old who does not share the same problems.
If you find a winning ad don't sit on it, don't let it die out, scale the creative by creating more of it that would appeal do different audiences.
It's a common mistake to rely solely on increasing ad spend when a winning creative starts to lose its effectiveness. Instead, consider creating more variations of the ad, especially if the message is still generating results. Don't be afraid to create 50 or more variations of the winning ad. Remember, it's not easy to find a winning creative, so it's important to make the most of it when you do.
Sometimes, it takes us six weeks to find a winning ad messege when we test 50+ ads. Once we find it, we make sure that we squeeze out all the juice from that winning ad messege.
5) ADVERTORIALS, LANDING PAGES ETC.
I have mentioned this in other posts. This is this years biggest leasson. Test more landing pages, advertorials and listicles. We all know that the product page, website always needs to be improved and the more you improve the better conversion you can get.
But what a lot of people overlook is testing separate landing pages and advertorials.
Especially landing pages based on best performing ads. If you talk about a problem in the ad and then just randomly send people to your website you will get sales. But if you talk about the problem and send people to a landing page that goes deeper inside the problem that the customer might be facing and educates them that this one of the best and cost effective solutions out there your ads will get even more conversions.
I almost feel ashamed that last year, we did not do this on the scale that we do now.
We also launch a new landing page or advertorial test for our past week's best-performing ads. To continue to the marketing messege. This strategy has been so impactful that we will launch a new sales campaign just for landing pages alone.
6) CREATING SOCIAL CONTENT.
It's not enough to create ads. You also need to create content that you can publish on your feed to get organic engagement. Getting organic engagement boosts your ads. Also, the best organic posts can be used as ads to increase engagement.How many content pieces do you need to post? Ideally? Ten reel videos a day. I do understand that this sounds wild, but here I am. We are not posting ten videos a day yet. Suppose we go back to understand what Facebook and Instagram are trying to optimize for. They want the users to spend as much time as possible on their platform. The only way a user can spend as much time as possible is to consume content. If you publish content that people like to watch, educational, humorous, and showcase content around your product or service, you will get a boost from Facebook and Instagram algorithms. Your ads will get lower CPM; lower CPM = lower CAC. Lower CAC = More profit or more money for advertising to scale your business.We started posting one post daily and saw a decrease in CPM and CAC. Also, engagement on our social media increased. Once people see the ad, they can click on the Facebook or Instagram page, and there's actually some good content that people like to watch, which helps Facebook's algorithm.
7) ENGAGING AD CONTENT
When we create ads we also think about what would be the engagement be like. All of of best performing ads for our brand and our clients are really engaging.
The more engaging the ads are, the more meta algorithms will push them. By engaging ads, I mean they need to get reactions, comments, and shares.
Here's a simple yet effective strategy to boost ad engagement: Start by replying to comments, and then end your response with a question. This encourages the person to continue the conversation in the comments section, increasing engagement.
It's a simple equation: the more comments you get on your ads, the lower your CPMs will be. Comments are a clear indicator of engagement, and higher engagement leads to lower costs.
I just checked the reports for our brands on our best-performing ads, and all of them had 100+ comments. Imagine seeing an ad without any likes, comments, or shares. Now, imagine seeing an ad with hundreds of comments, shares, and hundreds of reactions.
Seeing an ad with so much engagement alone sparks interest in seeing the whole fuss. You can also comment first under the ad using your profile.
One of our customer service teams' tasks is to reply to ad comments within 30 minutes of posting the comment. Replying fast increases the chance for them to reply back, which boosts your ad.
8) SUMMARY
Compared to all the previous years, this year has been the hardest in advertising, especially after recent changes in meta-algorithms going heavily into ad content optimization. This meant that we had to be more strategic about testing and more dialed into research than ever. If you had told me in 2018 that you need to test 50 ads a month and do at least 2 hours of research weekly, I would have told you to go F**** yourself. I have succeeded with my five ads per ad account, and I'm good. Looking back, this humbles me and makes me think and ask the question - "what will be required to get success with Facebook ads in 2026?" This is only two years from now? One thing I know for sure is that it will be more challenging than it is now.
Even writing this right now fuels me with an urgency to build things bigger and faster. Cause in two years there is going to be 400 resturants packed in a small town battling for the same customer.
Thanks for reading. I hope that you enjoyed this post. See you in the next one.

reading legacy of yangchen was a bit of an emotional roller coaster for me. with fc yee being such a good auther, i felt the emotions within each character very well, including annoyance and sadness. but what truly made me impressed was what the yangchen books implied towards the rest of the series. so in this post, i would like to point out attributes within the story i found worth note, and how this book makes me look back on the other avatar series in a new light.
one of the most interesting points is the white lotus. this series gave the white lotus the most unsympathetic story so far, which is suprising considering irohs appreciation of the group. it is not just a spiritual do gooder group, but a power holder, which is good to be reminded of. the fact they were willing to try and replicate unanimity shows the cracks. what made them humble themeselves by the time of atla, i dont know. maybe the war. but this side to them is fascinating and makes me a bit more suspicious of the old folks in the show.
which moves on to the next topic; unanimity. the island unanimity is probably the most disturbing place we get to see in the avatar universe so far. honestly the chair had implications that honestly made me a bit sick when reading it. but understanding this aspect of the series gives whole new implications to the ones we see in the show. with the tattoos not being a thing in the books and how its not as efficient as in the shows, it makes me wonder about what horrors combustion man and p'li may have gone through.
this also makes me wonder about chaisees backstory more. her description of diving for sponges sounds awfully similar to how combustion benders were drowned. theres also the fact that theres all the air nomad scrolls at the island and the learning of chi. unanimity seemed to have been a project long in the making, much longer than chaisees 2 year term. but the project seemed to have been much more different than what it became, making an army out of chi blockers and lava benders and assasins with poisons. however, considering what we are told about chaisees background and her interests, its possible to say that the combustion benders were her brain child. maybe she noticed the technique done by a drowning diver. its an interesting implication that you definetely could miss reading, but what im more interested in is the implications that could be made for other new and obscure forms of bending and the meaning the creators can attach to them.
for the rest of this, i wanna adress yangchen herself. yangchen, for as good of a person as she it, is probably one of the most egotistical people in her series. this isnt without reason. her condition has led her to have a unique point of view for what is important long term, both for the world and for the being of the avatar. so she does actions that align with this. do whats actually good for the world, not whats good for her one life. so she becomes very deffensive around other powers like the white lotus, despite the fact they are more like her than she is willing to admit. and her feelings and treatment of kavik is more out of pride he betrayed her for his brother more than just simply the betrayal. the idea that family would ever come before the greater good almost disgust her. this disconnect from other people, not able to see past potential mannipulation, is perhaps her true antagonist is the seriesm, not chaisee, its why she felt she didnt deserve to know for certainty that she can trust kavik. she did need to earn that trust.
lastly, i would like to talk about the book namesake, yangchens legacy. the entire series, she was concerned about not leaving an actual positive impact on the world and for her next lives to see another avatar full of regrets. at the end of the series, she learns not to care about the judgement as it is innevitable, and learns from jetsun that its worth helping the world for the few that you actually help, not the one who are out of your grasp. and good thing she did, because she definetely did not succeed on all accounts.
for her 2 direct reincarnations, many of the problems they had to handle are directly linked to yangchens shortcomings. obviously with kuruk and the spirits, but also with kyoshi and the general state of the world. the shang cities may be gone by kyoshis time, but the world has been shaped by yangchens nuance. the fifth nation, the saowons, the second earth king, the power of the sages, all of these have some link back to yangchen. but i feel no other character embodies the link more than Jianzhu. when comparing the characters from the books, kyoshi and yangchens actions and plot arent very similar. but in comparison, Jianzhu and yangchens struggles are very similar. they both try to achieve through deception rather than direct violence, both struggle with handling their personal relationships weighed with their responsibilities, and both struggle to see the good in humanity when they daily see attrocities. the biggest difference between the two is yangchens nomad upbringing keeping her from falling into her worse impulses, compared to Jianzhu who became a monster. when yangchen died, others had to take the hard role she took. and in the case of Jianzhu, he snapped where yangchen did not.
yangchen unfortunately probably didnt have too good relationships with too many of her reincarnations. kuruk was probably obvious, rightfully blaiming her for how his life fell apart. kyoshi is probably the only life she had a deep relationship with so far. true, she did not hate yangchen or have to bare her regrets, but she did have to reveal the mask the world new her as compare to the reality, something kyoshi had to learn to her discretion. but if anything her anxiety of being a blank slate, more memories than an actual person, seem to have been an anxiety without ground, as she never had a proper connection to her past lives compared to the other avatars weve seen so far.
aang is probably the most interesting reincarnationship we get to see. despite the fact weve only seen one interaction between the 2 so far, the implications are by far probably the heaviest. throughout the books, her balance between being a nomad and being the avatar was a constant struggle. despite the fact we havent seen her directly kill someone, the problem aang was dealing with when he reached out, we see that she failed her heritage in many other ways. to such an extent that she feels the air nomad code needs to be sacrificed to protect the world. but to aang, the last air nomad, this was never an option. in finding a way to keep to his heritage while protecting the world, aang corrected the last of yangchens shortcomings; holding to the promise of awakening and giving their future reincarnation both points of view, giving lessons of hope others may not have (which reminds me, i REEEAAALLLY hope the next avatar will have their past connections restored).
and thats about that, the majority of my thoughts. the books continue to be my favorite avatar media after atla itself. but as for what yangchen has to offer i find great is what it says about legacy. we see in the media with her is that she is flawed, but in the end still pushes for the right thing. and in the end, that push did leave to a positive impact. her legacy isnt in her shortcomings and others had to step in, but that she tried at all and that at least a few people were saved by her actions.

Obligatory passed Network+ post. I attempted this cert back in 2022 when I was working on my Associates degree and failed miserably, however I had to obtain this cert for my Bachelors.
Happy to say I passed about 5 hours ago, and relieved more than anything. I was overly stressed about the exam having previously attempted it and knowing how difficult it is. Trifecta is now complete and will also be obtaining Cloud+ in the near future. I found Security+ to be quite easier.
Study materials even though this has been gone over time and time again:
CompTIA cert master - solid course, practice exam is excellent.
Dions Network+ Udemy course with 6 extra practice exams - completed the first 4 of the 6 additional exams.
Professor Messor videos.
Studied for roughly 2.5 months, anywhere from an hour a day if I could squeeze it in, to 4 hours a day. It was a juggling act with a full time job, 3 kids and school in general.
After each exam from Dions Training, I noted all the objectives that I missed questions for and rewatched those videos in Dions Training as well as Professor Messor as I found it helpful to get two different takes/styles on learning the material.
I would note that my 2.5 months of studying was my fault, I have a few years of IT background and went through the Certmaster course without taking real notes, only to be wildly disappointed with the practice exam results. This lead me to redo the entire course and take proper notes, significantly added to my overall time (plus a bit of procrastination in scheduling the exam to try to get every extra bit of study time in I could). Realistically I likely could have had this done in 1-1.5 months if I took real notes the first time around. Lesson learned.

This might be long but I thought and hope to find some useful advice from here A little bit of background info: I am an English majored who graduated in 2020. Where I live English is my second language. When I first chose the major I was thinking about becoming a translator. However, during my studies, I found out that I liked literature, so after graduation, I tried to look for masters programs in literature (mind you I spent 3 years on that) I got accepted in 5 universities,but unfortunately I didn’t get lucky enough to get accepted in scholarship so I couldn’t go. So after that I decided to give teaching a chance (while I was applying for masters, I did private lessons online, mostly I recorded them then sent them. I did have some face-to-face lessons too) I took CELTA course so I can have something strong in my cv while applying for schools and also to get an idea about teaching since my major is general and didn’t focus on teaching. After finishing the course, I started applying for schools and got some interviews and one of them went well and I got accepted. Here where it goes down They first put me as a KG1 teacher (I am single and have no experience with kids at all) and I faced some issues with the kids since I couldn’t help them stop crying. I was scared tbh but I decided to give it a try. They later decided to transfer me to another school and will be taking over 2 grade 2 group of students. They put me to watch the teacher first then taking over her Which made me relaxed a bit since they’re not that young and I have a chance to watch before I get to work. However, the moment I set foot into that school, I felt like I couldn’t breathe. The whole time all I was thinking about is how to get out. I eventually couldn’t handle it and told them I am not taking the job. Which made me feel relieved but also very disappointed in myself. Because I am not the kind of person who would quit. But in that situation I didn’t really know myself. That was the first time I get so anxious Anyway that was more than 7 months ago and since then I haven’t been doing anything about my career. And I hate it Now after time passed, I started thinking about giving teaching another try. But every time I think about how horrified I was, I started doubting it. I thought about taking another career pathway, but I feel paralyzed and cannot learn anything new. So my question is, is teaching is for me and it’s just the beginning that is scary or was it a sign to just find something else? You might wonder why I chose it in the first place, well I honestly thought I would choose it because it’s the only career pathway for English graduates. Also since I wanted to pursue a masters in literature, the only job for me is to be a literature professor and that starts with being an English teacher first. Another reason is that my friends tell me that I am good at explaining things and so did my private students. Do I find myself in teaching? Honestly not really. I’m lost and would appreciate some useful advice. Thank you!

Hi,
I wrote this post as a comment for a guy in bad situation. Turned to be quite long post and almost "guide" how I escaped my panic disorder hell where I was almost 6 months, which from 4 months were 24/7 panic attack only changing from 1-5/10 at home to 3-10/10 outside, worst week was 7-10 in row with migraine. Now I am almost 2 weeks free from panic attacks, not fully healed but 90% better. I hope this helps anyone who needs it, every word is my own experience, not universal guide as everyone is different but I believe some parts fits us all.
In worst days I even believed I am already insane and will have to go to hospital and wont be able to take care of myself. These anxious doom thoughts are terrifying and let me to worst places. But you have to know and remember these are not real, these are not you!
Here are 3 tips how to stop the acute state of losing mind and then long term solutions that worked for me, hope it helps:)
It helps me to tell myself, even say it loud "I am not my thoughts, I am not my feelings, these will pass and are not truth". You can repeat it everytime you need. Looking in the mirror helps me.
If you are experienced in mindfulness/meditation having deep slow breath while focusing on it helps me to stop my racing mind and "get the wheel". Start practising mindfulness/meditation if you didnt before, its annyoing and a big step out of comfort zone but is really worth it, just force yourself few times and then its a good habit. This will help you take control of your mind.
A lot of unsolved problems and stress in my life was scaring me and caused those thoughts. Mind can stress itself just from one small potential problem up to insanity, esp OCD/ADHD mind. It helps me to ask myself: ok this problem will happen, what is the worst it can cause? Will it kill me? Will it make me homeless? Mostly only hurt my ego. And then set the worst case scenarios solutions. For me it was financial and work pressure and worst thing that could happen would mean.... selling my mercedes and buy cheap car so I have enough money for year... Thats it. Nothing more. Ending I didnt have to sell anything, just my mind was fking with me. Apply on yourself.
How I escaped this hell and realized on my way
For longterm solutions it helps me to write, write, look for answers and write again until I understand it. Writing about your life and problems, what are the roots, causes, variables, triggers, and mainly timeline of how did you got to the state you are now. This all gives you better understanding and control of your condition, mind, treatment and overall life. It helped me to understand what did I wrong (finding I didnt, it was just too much stressors), finding the causes to fix/remove (friends, job, demands on myself) from my life, finding the causes I cant remove (family, traumas, finances) and then the how to make them less stressful or fix (PM me if want talk of family).
You can go back to months, maybe even years from start of problems and watch how your life went and stressors/traumas that happened, also childhood is a massive source of variables of this equation ending in panic attacks so look even there and write it all down from your first memory up to home traumas, your parents/siblings/grandparents, way of raising, school, problems in school, girls, drinking, drugs, job... everything matters.
Finally when you really know and understand how you got here. You have almost won because making plan/treatment without knowing the background does not really work. But now you know what are your sources of stress, your fears and insecurities, triggers, unsolved traumas, risks and worst scenarios and what led you here. Now you know what to remove/solve and you can start making a plan one thing by another. Start with bigger stuff and easily removable things like that friend that makes you feel guilty, just stop talking/texting with him or your gym where you feel bad, find another or workout outside. Know your limits - that should be the lesson of this issue to find your own limits (work, stress, saying yes, ignoring your needs), now dont cross them even if you want to solve everything at once like me, dont do it, make a plan and set limits. For big stuff like changing work or family/friends issues its best to think about your options, if its fixable/want to fix or have to leave that crappy work or friend.
Leaving family should be option only in worst situations, limiting contact, setting limits and working on fixing your traumas and relationships to be ready to forgive them works better from my experience. Renew your plan every week or two depending on your situation, check for new goals or new info you found, tick off every point you solved and praise yourself for every single step you made! srsly put your hand on your shoulder and tell it loudly! Be proud of yourself and dont take it for granted, this is really imporant.
I found its really the best to be honest with people about my condition and feelings. Dont hide, be quiet or look for excuses, talk openly to the important people like boss or mom and tell them about your reality. You would be surprised that most people have no idea what is happening to you while you feel like dying or seeing something different in your behaviour (esp avoidance). Tell them how it really is, what are your needs/intentions and be honest. In the end with most people you will find they had/have similar problem in their life but its just not common topic and everyone understood me and respected my needs, some gave me advices or offered me help. Even my boss which I considered the least humane person replied me Im on antidepressants for 2 years as I hit rock bottom so I got you and tell me if I can help you, even after I was already working for another company and he knew it and that Im leaving...
For every trauma, injustice, anger or hatred in you, your deepest woulds and pains exists solution and treatment. One of them is always forgiveness and mercy. Im no ezo/religious guy but I found this truth over and over as only one way out of anger and finally fixing childhood traumas. Even for people that dont deserve your forgiveness, be selfish and forgive them for your good! Dont take it as their victory or you weakness, this is you win and strongest act you can do. This is where you find your peace. It helps to tell yourself: nobody is born evil and nobody does bad things to others with intention. These people probably had horrible life and even if their did bad things, it was best possible output they could make with their own history/traumas. This really helped me forgive my parents and grandmas which raised them that way and love them again, even that I had so horrible childhood I wanted to end it for years and ran from home many times. So you can also make it! It is possible to find peace:)
Here is the final and most important one - respect your needs and limits. I know its obvious but most people dont really do that including me. You have to be selfish besides your serious obligations/laws and important family stuff. I didnt know how to say no and wanted to help and please everyone and to be liked. I have huge need to help people and want to do the best I can, but both you and I have to look for own good first! Its all coming from childhood and traumas which is for long run. For now just think about that invitation "will it help me? is it good for me? do I really want to go there?" or is it just subconscious need to be liked or result of manipulative parents/partner? Put your own needs, health and peace as most important and dare to say NO. Even going to shop, does it stress me? yes, so I can order it home instead! Do I want to chat with colleagues while making coffee? No, so I tell them sorry Im not in the mood. Do I want to go out or to family celebration? No, so I just tell them I dont want to go. Do I want to be friend with this person? No, just tell them you have too much own stuff to deal with. Watch for any pressure or manipulation as red flag.
I hope this helps you as my deepest need makes me to:) but I spent almost 6 months in hell prison of panic disorder. Medications helped me, dont deny them as I did for 2 months Xanax and 4 months SSRIs because my ego didnt want to admit I need help. But meds are not solution but only tool to be able to find all those things, change work, habits, friends, say no, focus on myself and to dig deep in my history. Therapy is also important part, for me it was mostly about childhood and discussing my progress/plan and where put my focus.
Now I am almost 2 weeks free with not a single panic attack, even at the post office! They are coming but I embrace them and go towards the trigger as I already know Im free and this is just pattern and they disappear instead of causing attack:) It all changed when I found the missing piece of causes which remained - my hatred/love towards grandmas for how they affected my parents after forgiving parents in September. Finding it was 50% overcome anger and admit I can and will forgive them as they probably had way much horrible lifes born during WW2 in middle of Europe was another 50% and now my soul have peace and I am free from attacks. It could be really anything causing your hell so write, write, dig and look for every piece. You dont have to solve everything, but knowing it is almost 50%, sometime its the solve. Few final a bit harsh but helpful words.
Find yourself and understand yourself and own life, try to love and forgive yourself.
Look for positives and lessons learned from this illness and what it gave you.
Dont think of yourself as a victim, dont feel sorry for yourself.
Dont blame others and mostly dont blame yourself.
Wish you best of luck, soon recovery and happy life:)