GTMLab
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We don't do brand. We don't do generalist work. Five disciplines stacked together to make one outcome: a paid engine that compounds every month.

The 5 services we shipPerformance MarketingThe growth engine itself. Paid acquisition across every channel.Performance CreativeAds that win the auction. AI-tuned creative production at scale.Funnel Strategy & CROConversions, end to end. Landing pages, funnel rebuild, A/B testing.Data & AnalyticsEvery dollar traced. Dashboards, attribution, AI signal monitoring.GTM & Growth LabStrategy that ships Monday. Channel tests, positioning, expansion.
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Full-stack engagementLuxury Boat Tours
A luxury boat tours relied on OTAs for bookings. We rebuilt their paid acquisition, and in under 2 months, direct revenue up 30%, CAC down 35%.
>30%Direct Website Bookings increase
>20ROAS
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FeaturedLuxury Boat Tours
A luxury boat tours relied on OTAs for bookings. We rebuilt their paid acquisition, and in under 2 months, direct revenue up 30%, CAC down 35%.
>30%Direct Website Bookings increase
>20ROAS
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AI Alone Is Useless — Why I Built GTMLab.
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Southeast Asia's paid-ads blind spot — why localising creative beats generic scaling.
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AboutAbout GTMLab
Operator-led, senior-only, built by tech-founders.
2024Founded
~100Senior marketers
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GTMLab

Paid ads growth — and nothing else. Five disciplines, one engine, every dollar traced.

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© 2026 GTMLAB.AI · 200+ brands · $20M+ ad spend operated
B2B & B2C · Trade ExhibitionPerformance CreativeNative-First · Segment Angles
Case Studies→Megabuild

Attention isn't conversion — segment-specific, native-first creative cut Megabuild's cost per lead ~3× below account average.

−66%Lower cost per lead on the winning segment creative vs the account average — attention isn't conversion.
Name the buyerCreative that spoke to a specific buyer beat creative that spoke to “everyone.”
Month → weekendA month's worth of creative learning in one weekend — the “Sunday shift”.
“

The organiser had already sold every booth. So our job was never to just 'run ads' — it was keeping the promise they'd made to their exhibitors: a full aisle and the right buyers in front of them.

Shem
Growth Strategy Lead, GTMLab
MEGABUILD
Industry
B2B & B2C trade exhibition
Lens
Performance Creative
Format
Native-first, segment statics + reels
Focus
Attention vs conversion
LensPerformance Creative
IndustryTrade exhibition · building materials
The jobSegment-first · native beats polished · kill fast
FocusAttention vs conversion — read every creative on outcome, not applause
Use cases
B2B Matchmaking
Services
Performance Creative
Channels
Meta AdsEmailPhoneWhatsApp
Let’s talk growth →

Part of the Megabuild Indonesia series · one client, three lenses

This is the Overview. On Megabuild Indonesia comes apart into three deep-dives — same client, three disciplines, readable in any order: Gtm and Growth, Performance Marketing, and Performance Creatives.

Megabuild Indonesia is one of Indonesia's largest building-materials and architecture trade expos — now in its 22nd edition, staged at NICE PIK2, Jakarta. We came in on a 2.5-week emergency sprint, and the creative we inherited was the first problem: polished, generic, and long. The best-engaged asset in the entire account was also its worst converter— it collected attention and produced almost no registrations.

So the creative system was rebuilt from scratch inside Week 1. Not a fresh coat on the old ads, but a native, segment-first system: one expo, framed three different ways for three different buyers, shot to look like the feed it ran in rather than a corporate reel. This page is that build.

One expo, three reasons to walk in.

The same show means something different to each buyer. We stopped selling “the expo” and started selling the reason each segment would actually clear a day for it.

SegmentThe concern driving the decisionThe value proposition that landed
Architects & SpecifiersB2B“Is there anything here I can actually specify?”Framed as “Material Trends 2026”: a professional edge, not a field trip.
Contractors & BuildersB2B“Will this save me sourcing time?”Supply breadth plus on-floor deals, positioned against a generic trade show.
HomeownersB2C“Is this for the trade, or for me?”A renovation-planning destination, framed for the consumer buyer.

What the data forced us to change.

The dashboard didn't reward the prettiest asset. It rewarded the most specific one — and every change below came from the numbers, not taste.

DimensionWhat underperformedWhat worked
Video stylePolished long-form explainer — expensive, weak-converting.Native Instagram-style reels — cheap leads.
Value framingGeneric scale claim (“50,000+ visitors”) — near-zero registrations.Segment-specific value (“Architects · Material Trends 2026”) — the cheapest leads.
Content lengthLonger B2B explainer — weak conversion.Concise product-led short — roughly a third the cost.
Attention vs conversionGeneral expo video — highest CTR, but among the most expensive leads.Lower-CTR segment statics — converting 5–13× cheaper.
Attach a photo — the GTMLab pod on the Megabuild floor at NICE PIK2

On-ground at Megabuild Indonesia · NICE PIK2, Jakarta.

Before — one polished message for everyone.

The inherited approach pointed a single broad message at the whole market, with no segment-specific hook and no conversion discipline. It looked like a campaign and behaved like a billboard.

OLD · AWARENESS VIDEObefore
Drop creative

Polished, general, long-form video

Before · high CTR, high cost

The best-engaged asset in the account and its worst converter. Attention without registrations.

OLD · SCALE CLAIMbefore
Drop creative

“50,000+ visitors”

Before · vanity scale

An accurate, impressive number aimed at everyone that produced near-zero sign-ups.

After — segment-specific, native-first.

The winning system spoke to one buyer at a time, in platform-native formats built to convert rather than to impress a review deck.

NEW · SEGMENT STATICafter
Drop creative

“Architects · Material Trends 2026”

After · cheapest in account

Specific identity plus specific value. The account's lowest cost per lead.

NEW · NATIVE REELafter
Drop creative

“Come Today, Win Tomorrow”

After · native-first

Instagram-style and platform-native, plus a “We Are Open” cut. Cheap leads where the polished video was expensive.

The Sunday shift.

Four days into the paid launch the dashboards flagged a contradiction: the general awareness video was the best-engaged asset in the account and the worst converter. Attention and conversion were pointing in opposite directions, and the polished favourite was on the wrong side of it.

Over one Sunday the team pulled the per-creative breakdown, paused the underperformers before Monday market open, and shipped segment-specific variants — Architects, Contractors, Homeowners — by end of that day. Within a week the segment statics were producing leads~3× below the account average, and the polished video was repositioned to the top of the funnel where its engagement actually helped. A month's learning in one weekend.

What it teaches.

  1. Attention isn't conversion. — The best-engaged asset can be the worst converter. Read every creative on the outcome it drives, not the applause it collects — and be willing to demote your favourite.
  2. Native beats polished on Meta. — Instagram-style reels shot for the feed out-converted expensive long-form production. The creative that looks like the platform earns cheaper leads than the creative that looks like an ad.
  3. Segment-specific hooks beat scale claims. — “Architects · Material Trends 2026” beat “50,000+ visitors” decisively. A reason written for one buyer converts where a round number aimed at everyone lands on no one.

Results — the creative rebuild.

Everything relative — a multiple, a direction, a discipline. No absolutes.

−66%Lower cost per lead, winning creative vs account average
Name the buyerSpecific buyer beat “everyone”
1 weekendThe Sunday shift
3 messages, not 1Architects, Contractors, Homeowners — one hook each

Honest read: this was a 2.5-week emergency sprint, so the creative system proved itself fast but under real time pressure — the winners are the segments we could ship and read inside the window. With a full runway, the next job is mapping variants for the buyers we didn't get to test, rather than leaning on the three we proved.

Attention isn't conversion — and segment-specific, native-first creative cut cost per lead ~3× .

We rebuilt the system from scratch in Week 1, sold each buyer their own reason to walk in, and let native beat polished. When the best-engaged asset turned out to be the worst converter, we caught it over one Sunday and shipped the fix before Monday — a month's learning in a weekend.

Get a creative teardown →

The rest of the Megabuild Indonesia engagement.

Megabuild Indonesia was one client engagement built across three connected disciplines. This is the Performance Creatives deep-dive — continue into any other section below:

  1. Overview — see how the full Megabuild Indonesia engagement came together across strategy, media, and creative execution.
  2. GTM & Growth — see how the go-to-market strategy, audience structure, and demand-generation roadmap shaped a clearer path for reaching the right buyers, exhibitors, and visitors.
  3. Performance Marketing — see how the strategy was translated into a performance media system that captured attention, qualified intent, and moved people toward registration or inquiry.


Who built it

The sprint pod.

A growth-strategy-led pod that ran three tracks in parallel and held the floor for four straight days — media, creative, data, and on-ground under one plan.

Shem
Growth Strategy Lead

On Megabuild: Set the three-tracks-in-parallel model and the trust-dividend thesis — the reason 2.5 weeks was enough — and diagnosed the attention-versus-conversion trap in the inherited creative.

Albert Lie
Co-Founder · Account Director

On Megabuild: Client alignment, four-day on-ground oversight, and the mid-sprint budget shifts into the live event window.

Danny
Strategic Planner

On Megabuild: Built the ICP and messaging framework across B2B and B2C, plus the segment hook logic behind Architects, Contractors, and Homeowners.

Anna Tan
Senior Meta Ads Buyer

On Megabuild: Ran the dual-audience Meta acquisition — the creative tournament, the Monday pause after the Sunday shift, and the D-day budget shifts.

Dikmas Putra
Creative Director

On Megabuild: Owned the creative library — segment statics and native reels — and shipped the segment variants inside 24 hours during the Sunday shift.

Ridho Wahyu
Data & Analytics

On Megabuild: Owned funnel and attribution — the per-creative breakdown that concentrated spend on winners, and the source-to-registration tracking.

More wins, with the numbers behind them.

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Albert Lie
Co-Founder
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