Welcome to Intelligent Artifice, your weekly dose of insights to help you win with performance marketing in a Generative AI world.
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Q5 crisis
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Hey Reader Had a call with a subscription app’s growth team recently. Preparing for the Q5 CPM crash. ..the big spike in January. New Year New You etc. They wanted to go big. They were ready to scale. But they weren't feeling it. Creative tests werent translating to performance. Every week, they were trying to come up with completely new ad concepts. New hooks. New angles. New everything. 20 different ideas. 20 directions. And nothing was landing. Performance was flat. CPAs were climbing. …and there's only so much you can blame Q4 competition. They said: "We're doing everything right. We're shooting for creative diversity. We're testing constantly. We're producing more than ever." …and when I took a closer look at the account, I realized that THAT was exactly the problem. Every week was a blank slate. Every brief was a new invention. Every creative session started from zero. Their team was fried. Their designers were frustrated. Their media buyers were scrambling. And the algorithm? It had nothing to latch onto. 20 ideas. Zero compounding. I told them: you don't need 20 big ideas. You need a handful of big ideas - extended, compounded. Here's what we did. We looked at their last 90 days of creative. Found their top 4 ads that were actually working. Then we went deep on WHY they were working. The hook. The emotion. The urgency. The narrative flow. The visual format. Our visual intelligence agent BruteForce AI broke it all down. Then we surgically expanded. Seeing exactly what variables we’d change, and what we’d keep intact. Took an ad that was anxiety-driven. Made a version that was relief-driven. ‘Reskinned’ a FOMO-based message 5 ways. Took a notepad ad, turned it into an AIGC. Similar messages. New shells. (...and only then did we test net-new concepts to take big swings). Within a couple of weeks, performance stabilized. CPAs came down. And it’s starting to look like they have some crazy momentum going into January. This is the cadence of how we produce thousands of ads monthly. Without burning out. Without chaos. Without nuking performance. If you spend $50k+/mo and want to see how we can help you get battle ready for Q5 and Jan, hit reply and say ‘JAN’ - and we’ll talk. Later, Shamanth |
Welcome to Intelligent Artifice, your weekly dose of insights to help you win with performance marketing in a Generative AI world.
Intelligent Artifice features hard won insights from the front-lines of performance marketing in a Generative AI world - delivered straight into your inbox. For free.
Hey Reader - Many moons ago, I read this book about Miyamoto Musashi. Legendary Japanese swordsman. In it, two swordsmen travel to challenge an old master named Yagyu Sekishusai. This dude was the real deal. The Shogun's weapons instructor. But he doesn't accept challenges anymore. ‘cos he's retired now - and aint got time for the young ‘uns. So instead of fighting, he sends each of them a single cut peony flower. One swordsman, a guy named Yoshioka, is insulted. He wanted a duel. Not a...
Hey Reader True story. A fitness brand told me last week they're thinking of waiting until January to start testing. And I just... paused. I get it. January is the promised land, right? Everyone's motivated. Credit cards are out. "New Year New Me" is in full effect. But that's exactly the problem. January is GO TIME. The buyers are ready. The intent is through the roof. People are actively looking for what you sell. And if you're still "testing" during all that? You're warming up while...
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