Over four years we've delivered more than 5,000 projects for 600+ brands across 20+ industries and 8 countries. Patterns emerge at that volume. Here are the ones that held.
Creative beats targeting
Across almost every account, the biggest performance jumps came from a new creative angle — not a new audience setting. Targeting delivers the ad; creative decides whether anyone stops.
The cheapest lead is rarely the best one
Accounts optimised for the lowest cost per lead consistently underperform accounts optimised for the right lead. Cheap and useless is still useless — you just paid less to learn it.
Consistency compounds; campaigns don't
Brands that showed up consistently for a year outperformed brands that ran brilliant one-off campaigns. Recognition is built by repetition, and repetition makes every future campaign cheaper.
The offer is usually the problem
When a campaign fails, the instinct is to blame the ads. More often the offer wasn't compelling. Ads amplify reality — they can't invent a reason to buy.
- Test angles, not settings — the big lever.
- Optimise for the right result — not the cheap one.
- Show up consistently — it compounds.
- Fix the offer first — ads amplify, they don't rescue.
Ads make the truth travel faster. That cuts both ways.
See the numbers behind these lessons in our work.
What's the biggest lesson from 5,000+ projects?
Creative beats targeting. Across nearly every account, the biggest performance jumps came from a new creative angle — not a new audience setting. Targeting delivers the ad; creative decides whether anyone stops.
Why do campaigns fail?
Usually the offer, not the ads. When something isn't working, the instinct is to blame the media. More often there wasn't a compelling reason to buy. Ads amplify reality — they can't invent one.