Savannah Sanchez, founder of the top ad agency The Social Savannah, produces over 200 ads per week for 50+ clients including Fabletics, Bumble, Athletic Greens, and Loop Earplugs—and she's built a repeatable system that any performance marketer can implement.
In this comprehensive guide, we're pulling back the curtain on the exact production workflow, team structure, and quality control processes that enable this level of output without sacrificing quality.
Most agencies make the mistake of combining roles. They ask creators to be strategists, or they expect strategists to edit in CapCut. This creates bottlenecks and mediocre results.
Instead, Savannah's system separates production into three distinct roles:
This is the brains behind everything. The strategist:
"I'm meticulously looking at dos and don'ts lists and checking the final ad against them," Savannah explains. "When the client receives it, hopefully it's approved the first time."
The creator's job is pure execution—providing raw content only, with no editing required.
Creators receive:
"Let the creators do what they do best, which is creating raw content," says Savannah. "You're not paying the creator to be the creative strategist. You're paying them for their skillset of being great on camera."
Editors take raw footage and bring the vision to life through:
Savannah's team uses 10 editors working in parallel to handle the volume, with each receiving detailed briefs that include inspiration ads, voiceover files, and frame-by-frame direction.
Here's how Savannah's agency ships 200+ ads every single week:
Monday-Tuesday: Filming — 40 internal creators shoot content following detailed shot lists. Everything is captured on iPhone with specific lighting and setting requirements.
Wednesday-Thursday: Editing — 10 editors work simultaneously, each producing 4-12 ads per client depending on package size.
Friday: Client Delivery — All completed ads are delivered to clients for review through Trello boards.
This weekly cadence creates a predictable rhythm that both clients and team members can rely on.
The biggest mistake agencies make? Leaving too much open to interpretation.
"Many brands think—oh, we need to let the creators be creators and do their thing," Savannah says. "But you need to be very clear about your vision for the ad."
1. Product Focus — Clear direction on which product features to highlight and how to use them correctly.
2. Visual Examples — Links to 3-5 ads showing exactly the type of shots, transitions, and energy level you're looking for.
3. Detailed Shot List — Bullet-pointed list of every single shot required:
4. Hook Variations — Multiple script options for the opening 3 seconds, with instructions to record each version.
5. Script Body — The exact messaging for the middle and end of the ad.
6. Content Guide — Brand values, dos and don'ts, and inspiration from similar brands.
Savannah maintains databases of transitions and effects with example links, making it easy to copy-paste specific direction into briefs. "If I just write 'jumping up and something appears,' they're going to be like, what do you mean by that? So I keep examples I can reference."
Before footage goes to editors, strategists must review against this comprehensive checklist:
Content Completeness
Technical Quality
Performance Quality
Script Delivery
"You have to go through all the footage and make sure all your bases are covered," Savannah emphasizes. "This saves you from expensive mistakes and having to refilm after the client sees the ad."
Like creator briefs, editor briefs must be comprehensive and repeatable.
Edit Inspiration — Links to Motion reports showing winning ads, complete with comments explaining why specific elements worked well. "Motion makes it really easy to click on an ad, export it, and add comments that editors can see," notes Savannah.
Voiceover File — The cleaned audio file, ready to import.
Caption Instructions — Line-by-line breakdown of:
Format Example:
Line 1 (Voiceover): "I've tried every meal kit service"
On-screen text: "EVERY meal kit"
Visual: Fast cuts of competitor logos
Line 2 (Voiceover): "But this one changed everything"
On-screen text: "Until I found THIS"
Visual: Product unboxing with zoom transition
This level of organization means editors can work faster and more accurately. "If you just hand them a disorganized Dropbox with no captions, it's going to take them so much longer," Savannah explains.
Before ads go to clients, strategists review against another detailed checklist:
Structure & Pacing
Text & Graphics
Story Flow
Audio Quality
Brand Compliance
Pro tip from Savannah: "Watch the ad with sound off at least once. This helps you catch spelling errors you might miss when you're hearing the voiceover."
Managing this volume requires the right tools:
Project Management
Storage & Review
Performance Analysis
Creative Research
Music
Documentation
Communication
Savannah's team includes creators she's worked with since 2020—some now have families and have grown with the agency.
"It's all about creating long-term relationships, not making your relationships with creators transactional," she explains.
Where to find great UGC creators:
How to keep great UGC creators:
"Clear is kind," Savannah emphasizes. "When you're organized and your briefs are comprehensive, creators appreciate it. They know exactly what you need and can deliver it the first time."
When Meta rolled out Andromeda updates in 2024, many agencies panicked. Savannah's team made strategic adjustments:
Instead of one broad hook, test multiple buyer personas:
Meta wants to see bigger differences in the first 3-5 seconds, not just text changes.
Example for Loop Earplugs:
The visual approach differs enough that Meta treats them as separate variations.
For a brand that sells painting kits, Savannah's team tests multiple emotional angles:
"Meta is measuring relevance of an ad to each individual in a more granular way," Savannah explains. "You need to cover your bases in terms of different personas and different motivations to purchase."
To avoid creative fatigue and maximize winners, Savannah uses a systematic testing approach:
When Savannah finds a promising hook concept, she tests it across multiple clients simultaneously.
Example: A pharmaceutical ad used a fake poll format ("Do you like going to Pilates? YES. Do you like spending $40 a class? NO.").
She adapted this for three different clients in one week. "After these launch, I can go to Motion and see: did this perform well across the board? If it does, then I have a slam dunk hook to test for even more clients."
Savannah keeps a master list of every hook she's tested since 2020, with links to the actual ads. "If I'm ever stumped for a client, I scroll through this master list and usually find something that inspires me."
She also tracks week-by-week what hooks each client has tested, preventing repetition and ensuring systematic coverage of different approaches.
For each concept, create two variations that differ in meaningful ways:
High-Level Goal: Test less specific vs. more specific openers
Version A: Broader universal opener
Version B: Specific functional benefit or persona
This creates clear learnings you can apply to future creative development.
Before any ad ships, ask these questions:
Is your hook engaging? Check for interesting visual AND messaging in the first 3 seconds. Something thumb-stopping.
Is your pacing quick enough? Cut out pauses. Jump cut frequently. Aim for minimum 3 seconds per frame, but keep it snappy.
Can you zoom in and out? Add zooms on testimonials to emphasize certain words and create visual interest.
Does the storyline make sense? Follow the format: Hook → Story → Call to Action (unless intentionally breaking format for a trend).
Are you tapping into human desires? Status, belonging, transformation, convenience, pleasure—what motivates this purchase?
Take pride in the work. Compare to your inspiration ad. Is yours better? Worse? What would make it better? Would you be proud to feature it on your website?
Every week, Savannah reviews client performance in Motion Creative Analytics:
"This is a performance-based business. Clients are working with me month-to-month, and if my ads aren't performing, I'm getting booted. So I need to go in every single week and see how my ads are doing."
Here are the Motion reports to use for weekly reviews:
"Logging into Ads Manager and looking at every client's ad account would take 10 times as long as just going into Motion and looking at these beautiful reports. Plus the clients love the reports—they can easily see how ads are doing. Things are tagged, things are organized."
After producing over 200 ads per week for years, Savannah has seen every mistake possible:
1. Using Slack or Email for Project Management — "Say that again, louder for the people in the back. Do not use Slack and email to manage your editing and creator workflow. That is one way to burn yourself out, miss things, and slow things down."
2. Leaving Too Much to Creator Interpretation — "You need to show them visually what you're looking for. You need to communicate your vision in specific ways including storyboarding every shot."
3. Combining Roles — "Don't leave strategy to the creators and editors, and don't force your strategist to star in the ad or edit on CapCut. It's just going to be very time consuming."
4. Insufficient Quality Control — "Doing these little checks beforehand will save you so much time in the revision process. It's horrifying if a client gives dos and don'ts, and then I send an ad and they're like, 'This is on our don'ts list.'"
5. Not Having a Systematic Process — "You have to have a good process and stay organized in order to adhere to such tight timelines. Pick a project management tool and stay organized."
One critical point Savannah emphasizes: preparing the creative brief, ad examples, and shot list takes substantial time.
"The creator's filming is quick in comparison—it might take them 1 hour to nail the ad. But this is the critical task of the creative strategist. You are the brains behind it all."
The time breakdown looks like this:
You're not paying creators to be strategists. You're paying them to execute your vision flawlessly.
You don't need 40 creators and 10 editors to benefit from this framework. Start with the principles:
1. Separate the roles — Even if it's just you and one creator, maintain clear boundaries between strategy, creation, and editing.
2. Create comprehensive briefs — Invest time upfront to save time on revisions. Visual examples are non-negotiable.
3. Build checklists — Quality control systems prevent expensive mistakes and client disappointment.
4. Establish a rhythm — Pick a weekly cadence and stick to it. Consistency compounds.
5. Use proper tools — Project management software, creative analytics, and organized storage make volume possible.
6. Review performance weekly — Use Motion or similar tools to identify patterns and inform your next creative sprint.
7. Build relationships —Long-term creator partnerships are more valuable than transactional one-offs.
Producing 200+ ads per week isn't about working faster—it's about working smarter with systems, clear roles, comprehensive briefs, and quality control processes.
"When you're working fast and doing hundreds of ads, sometimes you do have to slow down," Savannah reminds us. "Just be like, can I actually take pride in this? Would the client be happy with this? That quick gut check before sending it to the client can save you from a flop."
The brands winning at scale aren't the ones with the biggest budgets or the most creators. They're the ones with the best systems.
Ready to transform your ad production workflow? Start by implementing one element from this guide this week—whether it's creating your first comprehensive creator brief, building a review checklist, or signing up for Motion Creative Analytics to track your performance.
The systematic approach to creative production isn't just for agencies producing 200+ ads weekly. It's for any performance marketer who wants consistent, high-quality creative output without burning out their team.
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