The supplement brand IM8 increased its paid marketing spend from $17M to $33M per quarter. Counterintuitively, its customer acquisition cost (CAC) dropped from $305 to $301, and then to $239. This efficiency at scale is attributed to a massive and constant refresh of diverse creative assets, which continually provides new winning signals for Meta's algorithm.
The era of granular audience targeting (lookalikes, interests) is over. IM8 lets the creative do the targeting. An ad featuring a tennis star will naturally attract tennis fans, and an ad about cooking will find that audience. Meta's AI optimizes delivery based on engagement with the creative itself, making audience selection obsolete.
The balance of effort in paid advertising has completely shifted. With platforms like Meta automating ad delivery, success is now overwhelmingly determined by the quality and volume of creative assets. Marketers should spend 90% of their time on creative strategy and production, and only 10% on technical platform setup.
IM8 attributes its ability to scale ad spend while keeping CAC flat to its investment in over 150 offline events. These events, featuring ambassadors and scientific advisors, build significant brand trust and credibility. This offline equity directly translates to improved performance and efficiency for their online paid advertising on platforms like Meta.
While most of IM8's creative is produced in-house, they strategically partner with external agencies to maintain diversity. This practice prevents the internal team from developing a single, repetitive style. By constantly feeding different creative approaches into Meta's algorithm, they avoid performance plateaus and ensure continued growth.
For growth-stage companies reliant on paid channels, the most valuable hires are creative strategists and copywriters, not traditional media buyers. The founder or CEO, with their deep product knowledge, often acts as the best creative lead, setting the vision for a team focused on content rather than platform technicalities.
Simply using AI to generate ads is not a viable strategy, as the output is often low-quality. The key differentiator is having a person with strong creative taste and brand understanding to guide the AI, critique its output, and refine it. The human's ability to discern good from "shit" is what makes AI a scalable creative tool.