Stop Living in Ads Manager: How to Scale Smarter in 2025

In today's paid media landscape, the best marketers aren’t just media buyers, they're strategists, researchers, and long-term thinkers. In this article, we'll dig into what separates good marketing from great. Spoiler: it's not the ROAS.

Here are the key takeaways from our discussion.

Creative testing is one of the most misunderstood parts of paid social. There are dozens of frameworks (bid cap campaigns, ABOs, ASC testing, Meta’s new A/B testing tools) and yet many brands still find themselves creating hundreds of assets with no clear feedback loop.

Great example: my team recently took over an account that was performing well on the surface. But under the hood, there was no system for testing or analyzing creatives. High-quality assets were getting no spend. There was no accountability for what happened after the creative team delivered. This is the most common disconnect between media buyers and the creative team.

The takeaway? Build a creative feedback loop & testing framework that matches the brand's AOV, CAC targets, and attribution model. Testing ads for a $35 product and a $3,000 product are two completely different games, and your attribution model & creative feedback loop should reflect that.

Last click attribution can be very misleading, especially when it comes to brands with a higher AOV on their top-of-funnel creative.

For example: A high-performing image ad might convert better at the end of the funnel, but it was the video ad two clicks earlier that actually influenced the customer to buy. That's why using tools like Northbeam, Triple Whale, or custom MTA (multi-touch attribution) models are essential for mapping the full customer journey.

The best marketers weigh multiple metrics:

These are the real indicators of interest and momentum, especially for high-consideration products.

If there's ever a silver bullet on Meta, this is it. Data from a Meta study showing that users exposed to reminder ads before a product drop or promotion were 25% more likely to buy when the sale went live. We found this to be true on several high-spending accounts.

Reminder ads are a native format inside Instagram and Facebook. Users get push notifications the day before, the day of, and the day after the event, without having to opt into SMS or email.

They’re cheap. They’re effective. And they create an entirely new way to retarget without needing a list.

Here’s the truth: most performance marketers never learned marketing. They’re trained to tweak bids and test thumbnails, not build brand equity.

But the brands that are winning in 2025 are doing the opposite. They’re thinking long-term. They’re investing in shareable, sticky, emotionally resonant creative, not just conversion hacks.

The most recent example? American Eagle’s campaign with Sydney Sweeney. It's a masterclass in bold, polarizing storytelling. Regardless of your political stance, it sparked conversation. And conversation builds brand equity.

Controversial content doesn’t have to be combative. When done authentically, it invites your audience to rally behind your beliefs.

I’ve seen this firsthand with our clients. When they post content with a clear stance, they'll often get pushback in the comments. But something amazing happens: their customers jump in to defend them. That shared belief builds deeper loyalty than any discount code ever could.

And this isn’t just theory. It’s the same reason brands are experimenting with “comment farming” techniques (planting controversial comments to spark debate and boost reach). Because social proof lives in the comments section now. Not in your Shopify reviews.

There’s a reason baking analogies come up often in media buying. You can’t keep opening the oven every 10 minutes to see if the cake is done.

When we're launching new campaigns, we intentionally avoid touching them for 3 to 5 days. Too many junior buyers jump in too soon, tweaking budgets and bids. You have to stay patient.

Good performance marketing isn't about reacting every hour. It's about trusting your setup and zooming out.

The most dangerous place to live as a marketer is inside of Ads Manager.

Performance is just one piece of the puzzle. The winners are those who zoom out, understand the full buying journey, and blend brand with performance. Bold creative with smart testing, controversy with authenticity, and data with instinct.

Try stepping away from your dashboard and looking objectively at how your brand can insert itself into culture. Build trust, be authentic, and look at the long term.

Because in 2025, attention isn't enough. You need impact.