Why you're getting this: You've crossed paths with CE Digital somewhere along the way. Every week we share what we're actually seeing inside high-spend accounts - including how we're using AI and our internal data tool, AdSignl, to analyze performance at scale and improve results for our clients. Short, practical, no filler.
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Alright, let's get into it.
We graduated 23% of our test creatives to the scale campaign last month.
Most accounts we audit are under 5%.
That gap is not purely a creative quality problem. It is a pipeline problem. And understanding the difference changes how you approach almost everything in a high-spend account.
Here is the five-stage framework we track across every account we manage:
Stage 1: Launch Every creative enters testing. Volume is the input - and quality matters here. Better briefs, better concepts, stronger production all raise what comes next.
Stage 2: Test Only Budget-capped. Signal collection. The math decides, not gut feel. Median lifespan: 9 days.
Stage 3: Hit CPA clears the threshold. The creative earns its way forward. Our hit rate is sitting at 23% over the last 60 days.
Stage 4: Scale Budget opens. Delivery broadens. Around 62% of ads that hit make it here. Median scale lifespan: 48 days.
Stage 5: Churn Every skilled ad eventually dies. It's the name of the game. We see roughly 230 churn per month in our highest-spend accounts.
An underrated metric we track is the replenishment rate: the ratio of new graduates to monthly churn. When it falls below a healthy threshold, performance declines regardless of what you do at the campaign level.
This is where the quality-vs-volume conversation gets important. Creative quality absolutely matters. Stronger creative raises your hit rate. Doubling your hit rate from 10% to 20% is a meaningful improvement. But even at 20%, if you are launching 40 creatives a month, you are graduating roughly 5 ads while 60 churn. The math still does not work.
Quality improves the rate. Volume determines the output. Both matter. The accounts that scale consistently are almost always the ones where those two things are compounding together at the same time.
Until next time,
Andrew