Before we write an ad, we read eight sources of evidence together. What they show about why people buy becomes a three-month roadmap: what to test, what to build and who does what.
Where the eight sources meet
Buyer intelligence
Concepts ranked by evidence. Every concept carries:
Finished ads your media buyer launches, each with a clear question behind it.
What each test teaches us decides what to build, refresh and retire next.
See the first 90 daysEvery partnership runs on the creative strategy core. The CRO layer adds conversion work when it’s in your scope.
Month 1
We learn what already works in your account, run the research scan and ship the first concepts.
With the CRO layer
Month 2
The angles that earn results grow into new concepts, formats and scripts, and weak ideas are retired.
With the CRO layer
Month 3
We protect what works, refresh what’s tiring and plan the next quarter from three months of evidence.
With the CRO layer
We review the ad account, proven ads, customer data, offers and unit economics, and agree with your media buyer and editors how feedback will move between us. Easy iterations on existing winners are flagged straight away.
The first batch pairs variations of your current controls with new concepts built on the buyer and angle gaps the scan uncovered. Each one carries a written hypothesis and goes live as quickly as approvals allow.
We work alongside your media buyer on CPA, ROAS and conversion data, and read every concept against its hypothesis. Where an ad earns clicks the landing page doesn’t convert, we look at the mismatch between creative and page and flag the CRO opportunity.
Stronger concepts are protected and extended into new formats and variants, and the next round is briefed from what the month taught us. By day 30 you have an evidence-backed view of what to make next.
Each month ends with a clearer, evidence-backed view of what to make next.
Anything on your side can move to ours if we contract it separately.
See who does whatResearch, creative strategy, finished static ads, video scripts and filming direction, and account analysis, plus CRO and business advisory when scoped.
Meta campaign launches and budgets, filming and editing video, building pages and running CRO experiments, and approving claims and brand assets.
Open a source to see what we read and what we look for.
Your proven winners are the most valuable research you own. We review the ads, hooks, angles, offers and landing pages that have actually converted, then work out why they converted: the promise, the proof, the moment, the format, the first line.
A strong control usually deserves an intelligent iteration before anyone invents something new from a blank page.
What we’re looking for: The reason a control converted, stated clearly enough to build variations from.
Reviews, complaints, post-purchase surveys, testimonials and any research the brand already holds. We read for what made someone buy, what almost stopped them, and the exact words they use to describe life before and after the product.
Those words often make better hooks than anything written in a meeting.
What we’re looking for: Purchase triggers, near-miss hesitations and precise before-and-after language.
A DTC brand rarely records sales calls, but it has something close: support tickets, DMs, FAQs, ad comments and the questions people ask before and after they order. Where a brand does run sales calls, those go in too.
Every repeated question is an objection a prospect also had. Most of those prospects never wrote in; they simply left.
What we’re looking for: The objections and confusions an ad or landing page should answer before anyone has to ask.
We study competitor creative with ad research tools such as Foreplay, GetHookd and Tryatria, then follow each one from ad to landing page to offer to checkout. That shows which mechanisms and promises the category keeps repeating, and which buyer concerns nobody is addressing.
A long-running ad is worth noting. It is not proof that the ad is profitable, so we never treat it as one.
What we’re looking for: Overused mechanisms and promises, and the angle gaps a brand could own.
Reddit threads, Amazon reviews, YouTube comments and Facebook groups show how people talk about a problem when no brand is listening. The phrasing is less polished and usually more honest.
Questions and frictions that keep coming up here often point to angles a single brand’s own customers never mention.
What we’re looking for: Unfiltered phrasing, recurring questions and the frictions people keep running into.
We look at the organic posts, hooks and formats earning attention in the category and in adjacent niches. A format that works for a neighbouring product can translate surprisingly well.
These are inputs for ideas, not evidence of paid performance. Organic reach and profitable paid acquisition are different tests.
What we’re looking for: Hooks, formats and storytelling styles worth adapting for a paid test.
When someone on our team, or someone we know, resembles the target buyer, we ask direct questions. What would catch your attention? What would make this believable? What would actually get you to buy?
The most useful answers are moments rather than demographics: picking up a grandchild, travelling, arriving home at the end of a long day. A moment gives a script a setting and an emotional state the viewer recognises, which is what makes in-the-moment creative relatable.
What we’re looking for: Concrete buying moments that turn a broad audience into a scene someone can picture themselves in.
Vintage direct-response advertisements and old catalogs, including J. Peterman, are a library of storytelling structures that sold for decades. We study why they worked: the setup, the specificity, the way desire is built before the product is even named.
Then we reinterpret the underlying psychology for a modern feed. We borrow the structure and the thinking, never anyone’s protected artwork or copy.
What we’re looking for: Proven persuasion structures that can be rebuilt in a new format and a brand’s own voice.
How the weekly analysis decides what to change first. Each ad is judged on CPA and ROAS alongside spend, volume and placement.
Low hook rate
The opening
The first one to three seconds: the first frame, the first line, the first reason to keep watching.
High hook rate, low hold
The handoff and pacing
The hook did its job. What follows it isn’t keeping the promise quickly enough.
High watch time, low CTR
Benefit, offer, proof and call to action
People stayed with the ad but weren’t given a strong enough reason to click.
High CTR, low landing-page conversion
Message match, price, proof and friction
The ad made a promise the page didn’t continue, or the page made buying harder than it should be.
Good CPA or ROAS
Protect it, then scale it
Keep the proven concept running and extend it through careful variants rather than replacing what works.
We iterate on what has already proven it can sell before spending budget on ideas with no track record.
An age range and an interest don’t tell a scriptwriter much. A specific moment, a feeling and an objection do.
Concepts are written for where the buyer is, from unaware of the problem to comparing products. How a test budget is spread across those levels depends on the account and the spend, not a fixed formula.
Classic persuasion principles decide what an ad needs to do. Taste and craft decide whether anyone stops long enough to let it.
A strong ad can lose on a page that breaks its promise. We look at both before calling a concept a loser.
Want to see the work first? Most brands start with the $297 Creative Test.
We agree the scope on the call. Then we need ad account access or exports, analytics, approved claims, existing creative and your most common support questions.
The findings become the insight and angle map behind the first concepts.
Concepts are briefed and produced, then launched by your media buyer under testing conditions you agree together.
We read results against each hypothesis, then decide what to iterate, retire and explore next.
Our Portfolio shows independent spec campaigns for TULA, Nutrafol and Sol de Janeiro, with the strategy behind each set.
See our portfolio
Start with the $297 Creative Test and see the research turned into 10 finished ads. Ready for ongoing work? Book a partnership call and we’ll map the 90 days for your brand.