More ads, more performance. It sounds logical, but our own tests proved otherwise. Running low and mid volumes of creative against higher volumes in the same ad accounts, the smaller batches won every time: more sales, lower CPA.
That was just one of the gems from our recent ‘Scaling Creative in the Era of Andromeda’ masterclass, where I was joined by Toby Hart (Co-Founder and Managing Director at NUSA Studios) and Ryan Balani (Digital Marketing Manager at Bird & Blend Tea Co.) to dig into what it actually takes to build and scale creative that performs in 2026’s paid social landscape.
We packed a lot into an hour. Here’s what stood out.
If you haven’t come across the name yet, Andromeda is Meta’s ad retrieval engine. The engine that determines which creative gets seen, how often, and by whom. And right now, it’s reshaping what “good” paid social creative actually looks like.
The problem is, brands are scaling creative output without locking down the fundamentals first. The result is an influx of visually similar assets that look busy on paper but fail to drive incremental performance when it counts. More creative doesn’t mean better creative. And Andromeda knows the difference.
This was one of the clearest themes of the session, and one our own testing has backed up time and again.
Andromeda rewards creative that actually looks and feels different, not just from your competitors, but within your own ad account. That means genuinely distinct visual styles, varied hooks, and persona-led messaging that speaks to different segments of your audience in ways that feel tailored, not templated.
The temptation, especially when you’re under pressure to scale, is to find something that works and multiply it. But if your ad set is full of assets that are essentially the same creative wearing slightly different hats, you’re likely cannibalising your own performance.
The recommendation from the webinar was clear: nail your creative diversity before you think about volume. Work out your visual styles, your hooks, your audience personas, and make sure they’re genuinely different from each other. Then scale.
If there’s one thing that unites agency, brand, and production perspectives, it’s that a vague brief costs everyone more in the long run. Clear objectives, detailed audience insight, and specific timelines aren’t just nice-to-haves - they’re the foundation that everything else is built on. The more precise you are before a shoot or a creative sprint, the more you get out of it.
And when it comes to production days specifically, Toby’s advice was to load them up. Multiple talent, multiple locations, multiple production values. The planning work you do in advance directly determines how much creative firepower you walk away with. Save your mental load for the strategy; give yourself the raw material to work with on the day.
Ryan shared how Bird & Blend’s matcha latte Easter egg campaign came to life, and it wasn’t through a formal paid brief or a dedicated production budget. It started with a creative concept that emerged from cross-team collaboration: something that felt fresh, a little unexpected, and genuinely on-brand for a company that takes its tea seriously but doesn’t take itself too seriously.
The algorithm loved it. And it’s a brilliant reminder that, sometimes, some of your most effective paid social content doesn’t come from your paid social team at all. The creative assets already living in your organic social, your brand shoots, your product launches are worth auditing with fresh eyes before you commission something new.
Whether you’re trying to get more out of your existing assets, plan a shoot that actually delivers, or work out what Andromeda really means for your account, we can help.
Get in touch with the Genie Goals team to talk through your creative strategy. We’d love to hear what you’re working on.
