Embracing the Chaos: A Framework for Scaling Media Buying Without Breaking the Business

Matt Frary has helped scale at least seven companies to $1 billion+ valuations through affiliate and creator partnerships. Notably, he worked with FabFitFun from inception—before they even had a product—through their 8-year journey to become a $1B+ company with over 800 employees. He's also scaled household names like Dollar Shave Club and Manscaped.

But, when you ask him for the secret to scaling, he doesn't talk about clean spreadsheets or perfect organization. He talks about Chaos.

"I was sitting on a beach, mapping out the industry," Frary recalls. "The average growth brand logs into hundreds of systems. They manage thousands of partners. They have data silos that don't talk to each other. The natural state of scaling is chaos."

Most leaders try to fight this phenomenon by building walls—separating the Media Buying team from the Affiliate team, and the Email team from the Brand team.

Frary argues this is exactly why they fail.

As the founder of Chief of Chaos, he believes that you can’t eliminate the noise, but you can harness it. In this Masterclass, Frary reveals his "Target, Execute, Measure" framework, explains why ROX (Return on Experience) is the only metric that matters to a CFO, and why he refuses to treat Affiliate as a department.

The Framework: Target, Execute, Measure

Most consultants log in to Google Analytics, export the data, and repeat the numbers back to the client.

Frary takes a different approach. He doesn't look at the data until he looks at the people.

"You cannot scale a company if the symphony is playing from different sheets of music," Frary says. "If the Media Buyer is optimizing for ROAS inside Meta , but the CFO is optimizing for LTV, the music is going to sound like crap."

To align the orchestra, Frary deploys a three-step framework:

1. Target: Define the single "North Star" KPI. (Is it Profitability? Volume? LTV?)
2. Execute: Align every channel to that specific target.
3. Measure: Establish a single source of truth for that target.

If the Target is LTV, the Media Buyer must stop celebrating cheap clicks that churn in Month two.

ROAS vs. ROX: The "Yo Mama" Rule

In the high-pressure world of performance marketing, ROAS (Return on Ad Spend) is usually treated as religion. It’s binary, clean, and seductive: Did I spend a dollar and get three back?

Frary argues that scaling requires a metric that captures the human element: ROX (Return on Experience).

"ROAS answers 'Did it convert?' ROX answers 'Did we build value?'" Frary explains. "You can acquire customers cheaply by tricking them or annoying them, but you destroy your ROX."

The Case Study: Killing the Cash Cow

Frary once worked with a brand running a high-ROAS ad. It was printing money, but it was aggressive and felt off-brand.

• The Decision: They killed the ad, despite the revenue.
• The Consequence: Short-term ROAS dropped.
• The Reality: 90 days later, LTV was up 30%. The customers acquired through the "better experience" actually stayed.

The Litmus Test: The "Yo Mama" Rule

To measure ROX without complex modeling, Frary uses a simple rule of thumb:

"If you sold it to your mom, what would she experience? Would she be spammed by SMS five minutes later? Would she be confused by the fine print? If you wouldn't do it to your mama, don't do it to your customer."

The Unified Theory of Media Buying

"Affiliate is not a department," Frary asserts. "Affiliate is simply a method of payment. Instead of paying CPM or CPC, I am sharing the risk and paying on a CPA. That’s it."

When you view Affiliate as a buying model rather than a siloed department, you can achieve massive scale.

The One-Two Punch Tactic:

Frary recommends integrating the teams to create a feedback loop:

1. The Hook: Affiliates drive traffic to a landing page (Risk-free traffic).
2. The Capture: The brand resolves the identity (Pixel/Email) of that traffic.
3. The Scale: The Paid Media team builds a Lookalike Audience based on that high-intent affiliate traffic to scale ads on Meta or TikTok.

Focus on content publishers and review sites rather than coupon/deal affiliates for the highest-quality lookalike audience seeds.

The Content Monster & The AI Trap

Creative velocity is the biggest bottleneck in modern growth. Brands need fresh ads constantly to fight fatigue on TikTok and Meta.

Frary sees AI as a tool for velocity, but warns against the "Uncanny Valley."

"It used to be that if the person in the ad wasn't smiling, we'd cut it. Now, we let the numbers decide," he says. "But as AI floods the market with generic content, humans are craving connection. You can use AI for efficiency, but you still need the 'Human Taste' to ensure the experience feels authentic."

Stop Chasing Shiny Objects

When a brand decides to "Embrace the Chaos" and scale, the biggest friction point isn't usually budget—it's focus.

"The most common breakpoint is Shiny Object Syndrome," Frary says. "Founders come to a conference, see a new tool, and want to use it immediately. They try to use a hammer for everything when they need a screwdriver."

The Challenge:

If you want to scale next quarter, Frary offers one immediate action item: Align the KPIs.

Leading Through the Entropy

Scaling a brand to the eight and nine-figure mark is rarely a linear journey; it's an exercise in managing the madness. As Matt Frary demonstrates, the "Chief of Chaos" isn't someone who creates disorder, but someone who has the vision to see the patterns within it.

The transition from a stagnant plateau to a high-velocity growth phase goes beyond just a larger ad budget.  The process requires a fundamental shift in how the organization views its customers and its own internal structure. By moving away from short-term "marketing heroics" and "shiny object syndrome," and toward a disciplined Target, Execute, Measure framework, leadership can transform chaos from a threat into a competitive advantage.

Ultimately, the brands that win in 2026 and beyond will be those that realize the "Yo Mama" Rule isn't just a funny anecdote—it’s a sophisticated financial strategy. When you prioritize the Return on Experience (ROX), you aren't just being "nice" to your customers; you are building a resilient, high-LTV engine that can withstand the volatility of the modern digital landscape.

Next Steps: Your Growth Alignment Roadmap

To move from theory to execution, here is your leadership blueprint for the next 30 days:

1. Identify the Target

Before the end of the week, gather your growth leads (Paid Media, Affiliate, SEO, and Finance).

• The Mission: Agree on the single "North Star" KPI for the next quarter.
• The Litmus Test: Ask each lead how their current daily tasks specifically impact that one number. If they can’t answer, their "sheet of music" is out of sync.

2. Measure the ROX

Go through your own customer journey on a mobile device.

• The Mission: Experience the post-purchase flow exactly as your customers do.
• The Question: Are you hitting them with SMS, emails, and aggressive upsells in a way that feels like spam?
• The Action: Identify three friction points where the aggressive pursuit of ROAS is damaging long-term customer trust and cut them.

3. Execute the One-Two Punch

Stop treating your Affiliate Manager as a siloed vendor and start treating them as a data source for your media buying.

• The Mission: Have your Paid Media team build a "Lookalike Audience" based specifically on the traffic coming from your top 10% of content-focused affiliates.
• The Goal: Use high-intent partnership data to lower your CAC on Meta and TikTok.

4. The Creative Audit

Review your current ad library.

• The Mission: Separate your high-velocity AI creative from your high-connection human creative.
• The Goal: Ensure you aren't falling into the "Uncanny Valley." Re-allocate 20% of your production budget toward authentic, story-based content that emphasizes brand equity over Buy Now aggression.

Ready to Scale?

If you’re ready to move beyond the plateau and embrace the chaos of high-growth scaling, connect with Matt Frary at Chief of Chaos to learn more about a full-stack growth audit.

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