- Nord Media
- Posts
- Why Your “Best” Ad Is A Ticking Time Bomb
Why Your “Best” Ad Is A Ticking Time Bomb
Creative performance is more random than you think. Here’s how to de-risk your next campaign.
Kody Nordquist
June 28, 2025
Welcome back to the 124th edition of Nord Media
In the early days, making creative decisions by gut instinct feels manageable.
You throw together a few ads, launch them, and hope something hits.
If performance is bad, you pivot.
If it’s good, you scale.
But as your budget grows, so does the risk.
Suddenly, you’re spending $50K or $100K+ per month on traffic… and making the wrong creative call means burning thousands of dollars in a matter of days.
Most brands don’t realize this shift until they’ve wasted months cycling through creative that doesn’t convert.
By then, acquisition costs are climbing and performance is volatile.
In this email, we’re breaking down:
Why creative performance feels random (even when you have a talented team)
How fast-growing brands systemize creative testing to find consistent winners
A simple workflow you can use to start testing smarter without adding more headcount
Let’s dive in.
Yes, you read that right. Ten thousand dollars. Free.
Why would we do something this crazy?
Because we want you to test the most exciting opportunity in performance marketing before everyone else catches on.
What's the opportunity? Catalog ads on streaming TV.
If you're already running catalog ads on Meta, Google, or Snap, you know they work. Higher ROAS. Better performance, consistent results.
The problem? You've been stuck on small screens.
Not anymore.
Marpipe just partnered with Universal Ads to bring your catalog ads to the biggest screen in your customers' living rooms. This isn't your typical “brand awareness” TV play either — this is pure performance marketing on premium streaming inventory.
We’re offering a clean $10k with no strings attached for qualifying brands, so you can be an early mover on a massive wave.
This window won't stay open forever. CTV + catalog ads = your next biggest growth channel.
Ready to claim your $10k credit? Apply HERE.
Why Creative Performance Feels Unpredictable
Creative success often looks like luck from the outside.
One ad performs. Another tanks.
Sometimes, even the ads your team feels most confident about end up underdelivering.
This isn’t just a creative team problem. It’s a structural issue caused by too many uncontrolled variables.
Here’s what’s happening behind the scenes:
Every ad has multiple levers at play.
Headlines, visuals, offers, CTAs, length, formatting, all influence performance at the same time.
Audience preferences shift fast.
What resonated with your audience last month could already feel stale.
Platform delivery algorithms add more complexity.
Meta’s machine learning decides who sees what, when, and how often. This makes it hard to isolate why something worked.
The end result: You launch ads, check performance after a few days, and struggle to draw clear conclusions.
The feedback loop stays muddy.
And your next creative round ends up just as much of a guess as the last one.
How Top Brands Turn Creative Into a Scalable Growth Lever
The fastest growing brands don’t leave creative performance up to chance.
They invest in structured, repeatable testing processes that give them clear performance signals before they increase spend.
Here’s how that typically looks inside a well-run creative testing program:
Single-variable testing is the default.
Instead of changing five things at once, they isolate one element (like the headline or CTA) and measure its specific impact.
Statistical significance becomes the benchmark for decisions.
They don’t pause or scale ads based on small sample sizes. Performance calls are made only after enough data has come in to validate the result.
Creative production aligns with test learnings.
The creative team isn’t brainstorming ideas in a vacuum. They’re building future concepts based on past testing insights about what hooks, formats, and messages actually drive conversions.
Testing velocity stays high.
Rather than running one test every few months, these brands build weekly or bi-weekly testing cadences. More tests equal faster learnings and fewer wasted production cycles.
By following this type of process, brands turn creative into a controlled, optimizable growth lever rather than an unpredictable cost center.
You don’t need a full-time data science team to implement smarter creative testing.
Even lean teams can use a simple framework like this to start gathering clearer performance signals:
Pick one variable to test at a time.
For example, test three different headlines while keeping visuals, format, and offer consistent.
Limit your variations to stay focused.
Testing three to five versions gives you enough data to compare while keeping budgets under control.
Set a budget that gives you directional data without overspending.
Depending on your CPA, this might be $500–$1,000 per test cycle.
Let the test run until each variation gets a statistically meaningful number of impressions and clicks.
This avoids drawing conclusions too early based on random fluctuations.
Review results and build your next creative round using the best-performing elements.
Over time, you’ll start to see clear patterns about what messaging, visuals, and formats your audience responds to.
Stack learnings over multiple test cycles.
Testing shouldn’t be a one-off project. It’s an ongoing system that informs every future creative decision.
The goal isn’t to find a single magic ad.
It’s to build a playbook of proven creative elements that you can reliably scale.
Launch a post-purchase upsell automation in minutes with OneText. Most automations see a ~3% or higher conversion rate from post-purchase SMS offers. Unlock potential revenue and experience a significant lift in AOV—some even see it double.
Boost your upsell revenue in minutes with OneText post purchase automations. Most brands see a 3%+ conversion lift—some double their AOV.
Turn order confirmations into revenue. OneText’s SMS upsells automation convert at 3%+ and boost AOV fast.
Post-purchase SMS upsells made easy. Launch in minutes, drive results for months.
What if your order confirmation messages made you more money? OneText Post purchase automations help you unlock new revenue in minutes.
OneText helps brands capture more revenue from every order with post-purchase automations that convert at over 3% and increase AOV.
Unlock hidden revenue after checkout. OneText post purchase automations help drive upsells that boost AOV with zero friction.
Final Thoughts
The brands that grow from 7 to 8 figures don’t win because they have better creative ideas.
They win because they have better creative processes.
When you stop guessing and start testing, every dollar spent on production and media goes further.
The longer you wait to build this discipline, the more expensive creative mistakes become.
What makes Nord Media different from other agencies / contractors?
- Everyone on our team has directly managed $1M+ in spend on a single account.
- We have a combined total ad-spend managed over $1B+ throughout the years
- I personally oversee and work directly on the strategy of every single brand we work with.
- We’re more of growth consultants who run ads instead of just an “ads agency”
- No contracts… I never wanted to sign long contracts on the brand side, so we don’t do long contracts. We’ll earn our place with you every single month.
- Average retention rate of 94% over the past 4 years.
- Only accept 2-4 brands every quarter, small team, focused and intentional work.
Most agencies are chasing dozens of leads per month because they have such high churn. I’m creating the exact opposite approach.
What are we extremely good at?
- Growing 7 & 8 figure brands profitably. We set a foundation for profitable growth before focusing on scaling. This ensures that we’re achieving profitable results within 30-60 days of onboarding.
- Our “core” expertise is scaling brands from $5M → $50M+ in annual revenue. That being said we have brands from $1M - $100M+ currently under management.
Why us?
- I’ll be very transparent about the fact if we can help you or not. We typically turn down about 70% of the people who reach out because either we’re not a good fit, our retainer wouldn’t make sense or their current agency is running a similar playbook so we wouldn’t be able to make monumental changes. I truly want to build an agency that brands can trust and work with as a long-term strategic partner.
If you’re a brand spending over $50k+ / month on ads and are struggling with becoming profitable or scaling and looking for another opinion / option click the link below and let’s chat.
» Click Me «
Not ready for an agency / call but still need some help? Shoot me a reply with any questions / issues you’re having and I’ll help anyway I can.