Meta just gave us a cheat code!

Here's what we learnt...

Author

Pippa Smith
December 10, 2025 • Estimated Reading Time: 6 minutes

Good morning!

We've got something big for you this month, straight from Zuckerberg himself (well, almost).

We recently had the chance to sit down with Meta's ads training team and took extensive notes on their latest insights. As always, you can rely on us to turn anything into content, and voila! We’ve created the latest Meta Ads playbook. 

Keep reading below to access the guide.
But first, let's recap what's been happening at SSL:

This month’s recap includes:

  • Success for SIX.

  • Meet Baidy, your next CFO.

  • Does this email look funny to you?

  • Our Meta Ads Playbook.

Success for SIX.

A huge congratulations to SIX Invest, recently closing their Equity Crowdfunding raise on Swarmer and securing $650k+ in investment.

Working with the incredibly talented Co-founders, Adam Verwey (Ex-Future Super) and Sophie Hall (prev. Product Lead at the ASX-listed company Whispir), SIX is Australia’s first ethical investing platform and has already made an incredible impact in just a year of operation.

  • 🐟 Achieved globally high votes at Coles and Woolworths AGMs to protect the endangered Maugean Skate;

  • 🔥 Pushed healthcare giant CSL Ltd to disclose its gas transition risks;

  • 🤰 Secured access to paid parental leave for 1,700 Lovisa workers; and

  • ✈️ Forced Webjet to drop animal cruelty tourism.

With $30,000 allocated to advertising spend on Meta, we averaged a 13x ROAS on their campaign. Want to know how we did it? Check out our Meta Ads resource below!

You can find out more about SIX Invest and their current campaigns using the link below:

Meet Baidy, your next CFO

Baidy Barton is your go-to for investible financial models and turning your vision into actionable growth plans and a scalable business, aka your go-to CRO/ CFO.

We recently caught up with Baidy to talk about financial modeling and the use of models as a show of force to secure investment.

Here’s Baidy’s top tip:

“I often see otherwise excellent founders lose the confidence of potential investors when they hand over their financial models. Founders send through a Frankenstein’s Monster of a model that an investor has to wade through, causing them to really dig into the assumptions and details to build conviction. At best, this drags out the process. At worst, potential investors walk away.

Don’t underestimate the power of an easy-to-read dashboard in your financial model.

The dashboard should include the headlines, key metrics, material assumptions, and key risks (trust me, this builds credibility).

When you’ve built the model from scratch, it can be hard to see the forest from the trees. I review a lot of models for founders and develop dashboards that function as a show of force and give investors the confidence to invest.”

Baidy Barton.

You can learn more about Baidy’s services and connect with her here:

Does this email look funny to you?

Recently, we came across the incredible content from Matt McGarry, Founder of Newsletter Operator. From 2023-2025, Matt’s company, GrowLetter, helped clients like James Clear, Steven Bartlett, and Robinhood build, monetise, and grow their newsletters.

Now we loved Matt’s content, but it was the software platform he was using that really stood out to us - a platform called Beehiv.

Resultantly, we’ve now switched over from Kit to Beehiv to help grow our own newsletter!

If you’ve ever wanted to take on Email Marketing for your business or would like to learn more about Beehiv and why we transferred, feel free to reach out.

(Not an ad - just a great platform we want to share).

Our Meta Ads Playbook

At SSL, we love running an effective Meta Ads campaign. As part of their recent updates to Ads Manager, Meta’s specialist advertising teams have been catching up with advertisers (like yours truly) to talk through what's really driving conversions.

Here's what's inside 👇

  • The latest Meta performance trends (straight from the source).

  • Timing insights (When Ads will be most expensive - and how to avoid this).

  • The two-second rule and why your content might not be performing.

  • How to craft the perfect hook.

However, we won't give it all away here. You’ll need to read the playbook to find out what’s really working before the holiday season escapes you.

Thanks again for reading.

If you found this helpful, pass it on to someone who loves marketing as much as we do. ​They can sign up using the link here:

If we don’t speak, I hope you have a lovely Christmas and a Happy New Year!

Best,
Pippa Smith