When most brands think about scaling paid media, they picture it as something that happens after you have found a winning ad. But the truth is, scalability doesn’t start at the finish line, it starts on day one. The way you plan, test, and launch your creative is what determines whether your campaigns can grow sustainably or not.
At Primer, we have our own system to test and scale: the Outlier Method. And today, we’re sharing with you our simple process to build scalable paid media ideas from day one.
Build your Creative Playbook
Before you even start sketching out ads, you need to answer one question: who are you trying to reach?
Audiences should drive every decision, because determining the right platform ultimately comes down to reaching the partner’s right audience at the right time. Before anything else, you need to clearly understand who are you talking to and which levels of sophistication and awareness they have. Once you know that information, you can move forward and choose a platform to advertise depending on the characteristics of your audience.
And the platform you choose will shape everything about your creative approach.
- Meta, especially Instagram, prioritizes polished variations of your top TikTok or UGC-style content, plus formats like carousels, statics, and even catalog ads. Note that content that works for TikTok often works for Meta, but it doesn’t happen the other way round. And costs on Meta are a little higher than on TikTok, this is due to the competition.
- On the other hand, TikTok is all about UGC, fast-paced editing, and trends, basically content that feels like it belongs in the feed. High production value isn’t the goal; authenticity is. Another thing to keep in mind are the costs. Typically, CPMs on TikTok are lower, but as we have seen all over 2025, they are increasing, specially towards Holiday season.
Now that you know which platform you are going to use, it’s time to build your Creative Playbook.
A creative playbook is essentially your north star for paid media. It’s a living framework that helps you test, learn, and scale without losing consistency. Here’s what goes into building one from day one:
- Define your creative angles
A creative angle is the storyline you choose to highlight about your product. Defining an angle is not an easy task, as you need to keep in mind who your target audience is, their needs and how your product will fit in their mind.
At Primer, we use a framework finder to identify the right angles for our partners’ audience, considering customers’ level of awareness and sophistication. After you define your audience, choosing the right template for your ad is simple.
Those templates act like shortcuts for building creative that matches the mindset of your customer. Here are a few:
- BDQs (Buyer Decision Questions): answer the most important Buyer Decision Questions (BDQs) that potential customers would ask themselves during the purchasing process.
- Vs. Alternative: this template positions your product as the BEST possible solution to a customer’s problem. It’s a direct way to showcase your strategic advantages over the competition.
- Sales Questions: this one uses a FAQ-style to address sales questions head-on, with answers that help guide a user past their purchase objections.
Our Creative Testing Playbook has some more templates you need to try.
- Keep messaging consistent, but formats flexible
Although this may seem obvious, the messaging doesn’t end in your creative. Your copy matters too.
When you’re running a campaign either on Meta or TikTok, your copy should be aligned with the creative and it also should be consistent with the landing page to complete the user journey.
For example, if you’re mentioning a discount in your ads, make sure that same discount is displayed on the website. Otherwise, users will quickly flag your ad as misleading, and you risk losing trust (and conversions).
During holidays, you can use DPA masks (dynamic overlays that add seasonal frames or labels to your product catalog ads without creating new assets) in your evergreen creative to make them feel seasonal without having to reinvent the wheel. This allows you to scale your proven winners while keeping them fresh and relevant to the moment. In other words, your best-performing ads don’t have to be one-and-done, they can evolve with context and keep driving results.
Set Your Creative Roadmap
One of the biggest mistakes brands make with paid media is jumping straight into scaling without a plan.
In the first step, we covered the importance of building a creative strategy before you even begin testing: defining clear audiences, knowing exactly who you’re speaking to, and keeping your message consistent across platforms. Now comes the critical question: how are you going to test? Because, as we mentioned earlier, there’s no way to scale effectively if you don’t have a plan in place.
At Primer, we have our own system. It’s called The Outlier Method. This is an ad testing methodology for paid social media and the goal is to optimize your ads as much as possible by testing every element: copy, creative, landing pages, and audiences.
This method consists of 4 simple steps.
- Launch – Launch a new big idea ad set.
- Pause – Pause ads that are underperforming.
- Scale – Scale Outliers by adding budget and making iterations.
- Iterate – Iterate on your winning iterations.
Let’s check each one.
1. Launch.
Run your new tests in a dedicated ad set or campaign, separated from your Evergreen. The reason is simple: platforms keep a performance history for each ad. If you pit a brand-new ad directly against one with a strong track record, the algorithm will naturally give preference to the established winner, leaving your fresh test without a fair chance to perform.
And, besides that, there are a few considerations you should be aware of.
First, the budget. This may seem obvious, but there are still people who run creative testing with $10 dollars a day and expect results. It used to work in the past but not anymore.
Make sure you’re set up for success with proper budgets. The rule is to have enough budget to generate 50 of your target conversion in 7 days. If you spend too little, you risk ineffective creative learnings and not feeding the algorithm enough data to target effectively (which are both critical components to testing and scaling).
And the second point is that, before launching your creative, you need to define your targeting. Lookalikes and interest based audiences can work well in certain instances, but the most reliable way to build a truly scalable testing strategy is to leverage the algorithm’s targeting. In Meta, the best way to do this is to run in Advantage+ Shopping Campaigns. These campaigns take fully advantage of broad audience targeting and all placement options.
This means that by giving the algorithm more signals, you’re helping it find the right people faster and cheaper than manual targeting ever could.
2. Pause
Begin pausing your lowest-performing tests right away. Watch your tests closely and pause the ones with the highest CPA.
Always remember that a high ROAS doesn’t always mean the ad is successful. Sometimes an ad can show a strong ROAS simply because it drove a single purchase with a high revenue. That’s why CPA is the more reliable metric: if an ad consistently delivers conversions at a lower cost, you know it’s a real winner.
3. Scale
Once you’ve identified your winning ads, the next step is to scale them and the smartest way to do it is by letting the platforms do what they’re built for.
First, increase the budget. This will not only allow your creative to reach a broader audience, but also help it exit the learning phase faster too. Remember that in a world full of competitors, the ones with more $$$ get to be shown more often.
But scaling vertically is not the only way you can scale. Although Media Buyers love to surf during Holidays seasons, you can scale horizontally too. That means finding new ways to expand the reach of your winning creative without creating brand-new assets. Here’s how you can do it:
- Run the same creative in different campaigns or formats (e.g., single image-carousel, test your best TikTok ad on Instagram Reels).
- Whitelist ads through a creator’s account—especially if that creator appears in the content. This helps your ad reach a fresh audience and feels more authentic since it’s coming from the creator’s profile, not your brand.
Always remember that scaling is not only adding $$$, it’s way more than that. It’s extending the lifespan of your best creatives, and giving them new ways to win.
4. Iterate
Creative iteration never stops. Even the best ads can decay over time, so keep testing small variations like different hooks, formats, or visual treatments, to refresh your winners before performance drops.
Combining algorithmic power, smart scaling, and disciplined iteration can grow campaigns sustainably over the long run.
We have some iteration ideas you need to try like these visual hooks or simple tweaks to avoid creative fatigue.
Scalability from Day 1
Scalability from day one isn’t easy, but trust us, it’s definitely worth it.
If you want your paid media strategy to be truly solid, you need to follow every step of the process. You can’t skip one and expect the same results. Each stage is built for a reason, so planning and executing the full roadmap is the only way to reach the results you’re aiming for.
When it comes to building your creatives, the first step is always structure. That’s why we rely on the Creative Testing Playbook, to find the right template to express exactly what your product is and how it works.
From there, the next step is your Creative Roadmap. We use the Outlier Method, because it’s the method we found that works best. We emphasize this process because we know it performs. Not only that, but we’ve applied it to our partners and results exceeded expectations, check our successful case studies.
If you’re ready to scale smarter and want a partner who knows how to make it happen, let’s talk.
Partner with Growth Experts
Creating video ads shouldn’t be a difficult and time-consuming task—and that’s exactly why we’re here. At Primer, we specialize in crafting videos, images, landing pages and UGC that actually convert, delivering real, measurable results by using the latest tools in the market. We have partners with big brands like Jocko Fuel, Sunday and more.
Your Growth Marketing Team: Partnering with Primer means we take care of everything—strategy, planning, production, reporting, and optional media buying—to achieve your growth objectives. You can focus on your business while we deliver the results.
Creative On-Demand: Access a subscription-based marketing creative platform to request UGC, videos, images, and landing pages crafted by top marketing creative strategists and designers who understand what drives conversions.
