Episode · 2026-03-10
Banned: RIP Your Meta Account
Banned: RIP Your Meta Account | Next Gen Mall Rats | Drew Marconi x Jacob Posel Join (3.9.26)
Rundown
Chris Hall and Colin open with a warning about Meta permanently banning accounts that piggyback on unauthorized third-party apps to access ad accounts, then interview Drew Marconi about CRO and pricing/bundling strategy testing, before AI agent builder Jacob Posel joins to discuss building context-aware AI agents and closes with a riff on retail's potential revival.
Takes from this episode
Meta is justified in permanently banning accounts that use unauthorized third-party developer apps to access ad accounts, even though it collaterally punishes well-meaning operators just trying to make a living.
Meta system sees the app ID suddenly hitting hundreds of unrelated ad accounts and looks like unauthorized scraping or a security breach... So, that violates their terms which is totally fair.
The best operators are moving past small UX-level CRO tests (like button color) toward testing entire strategic bets like pricing and bundling that touch the whole customer journey.
we're no longer constrained to just these like user experience questions, which are less interesting than they were a decade ago
Testing price points doesn't just move conversion rate — it changes which customer segments a brand can even reach on Meta.
different price points would like dramatically change the demand. And in a way that changed conversion rate, but also changed who they can reach in meta
Effective AI agents are built by first teaching the agent to handle messy, subjective business context (like meeting nuance), not by rushing to wire up more tool integrations.
there's a lot of there's a lot of other context required. So by doing that, you train the muscle in your business of how do we manage context for this agent
Getting comfortable with unrestricted tools like Open Claw now will prepare people for the more guardrailed, employee-like AI agents that are coming next.Prediction
if you get comfortable with Open Claw, then you'll be very comfortable at the agents that are coming and that that are being built right now. And that's how you set yourself up for the future
Physical retail may be due for a revival, and DTC brands beyond just the biggest winners should consider opening their own retail space, not only the most successful ones.
perhaps there is chance for a revival of sorts for retail... even for others that are still on the up-and-coming and the rise, why not create a retail space