635: $76M in 3 Years: The Meta Ads System Working in 2026 | Nick Shackelford

Hey, founder fam. I want to talk to you about something super exciting. We're officially partnered with Omnisend, the email marketing and SMS platform built specifically for ecommerce founders. We've been recommending Omnisend to founder students for a while now because it just works. Whether you're launching your first store or you're scaling to 7 figures, it really helps you automate your marketing and get real results. Did you know on average, Omnisend customers make $68 for every $1 they spend, which is an insanely good return on investment? And because you're part of the founder community, you get 50% off your first three months with the code founder 50. Just head to omnisend.com/founder without the e to get started. Alright. Now let's jump back into the show. Meta ads don't work anymore. You've probably thought it, said it, or heard another founder say it after one bad month of performance. Today's guest is Nick Shackleford. He's the cofounder of Structured Agency, partner at Brez, and one of the most respected meta ads operators in the world. He scaled hundreds of ad accounts through iOS changes, rising CPAs, platform volatility, and multiple algorithm shifts, and he's here to say this clearly. Meta isn't broken. Most founders are just reading the wrong signals. After the growth at all costs era of 2021, 2022, the playbook has fundamentally changed. Credit volume is up, complexity is up, but performance is down, and many founders are just flying blind. And in this episode, Nick is going to break down what actually matters right now. You'll learn which metrics are actively misleading founders in 2026, why testing more ads is often making performance worse, not better, and the exact point where meta advertising stops being a media buying problem and becomes a business model problem. This is the 2026 operator's playbook for meta ads from someone who's managing millions and millions and millions of dollars in spend in accounts, real accounts, right now. Let's get into it. Hear the stories, learn the proven methods, and and accelerate your growth and future through entrepreneurship. Welcome to the founder podcast with Nathan Chen. Nick Shackleford, welcome to Melbourne. It's very nice. Feels very much like America, if I'm being honest. It's been really cool hanging out. We'll talk about why you're here for a multitude of reasons in Melbourne. This is your first time in Australia. I wanna talk with you Facebook ads. So the game has changed. I think so. I kind of been, like, yelling about this for a while. I know well, I think this is gonna be a controversial take. I think most of these people are gonna feel probably they've been doing stuff 2019, 2020, 2021. Because it's like tried and true. You wanna, like, do the same feel like I'm gonna curse, like, same shit that got you to where you are. Mhmm. It's just not that way. I've just seen too much stuff nowadays. Yeah. And so I really wanna …