The HexClad playbook: How lean marketing teams can drive profitable marketing with creative

It's no secret that creative is a solid growth lever for any DTC brand. But even if you’re operating with a smart, well-staffed team, creative reporting can be a massive time sink that still only uncovers surface-level insights. 

This was the situation the team at HexClad found themselves in: trudging through ad platforms and formula-heavy spreadsheets to try and ship more winning ads. 

HexClad's Director of Paid Media, Cameron Bush, knew this reporting workflow was unscalable. So, he and HexClad’s ecommerce manager, London Spilker, began restructuring it from the ground up. Using its renewed, 5-step creative testing workflow, HexClad increased top-of-funnel spend by 60%. 

Let’s unpack how they made it happen. 

HexClad's 5-step workflow for optimized creative reporting

Cameron and London’s first priority was consolidating a strong stack of winning creative, and they laid out a 5-step plan to bring it to fruition. 

Step 1: Any new creative assets are placed in HexClad's ad rotation for 14 days. 

Step 2: After this two-week trial period, the marketing team runs a creative performance report to identify winners. 

Step 3: Winning creative is recirculated for another two weeks to analyze momentum. Underperforming assets are set aside for further review. 

Step 4: After 30 days, an aggregate performance report is run to analyze the impact of all creative assets. 

Step 5: Winning creative assets that maintained momentum receive scaled ad spend. All underperforming assets are reviewed to uncover iteration opportunities. 

The only hurdle on their path to mastering creative reporting? Bandwidth 

While this strategy would help HexClad generate a winning stack of reusable creative assets, the sheer busy work required to execute it would likely mean burnout for its lean team. 

That’s because they spent most of their time reporting on ad destinations. Neither Facebook nor NorthBeam let HexClad export destination URLs for pivot tables, which left them implementing in-depth naming conventions for every ad. This took dozens of hours every month. 

Cameron had a hunch that the right tool could simplify and support HexClad's creative reporting. Not long into his search, he found Motion and decided it was time to invest in a dedicated creative analytics platform. 

"Our proposed reporting would have been an entire full-time job for 2–3 people. It was clear we needed a solution that would enhance the reporting capabilities of our lean team." - Cameron Bush, Director of Paid Media at HexClad

How they cleared this hurdle? Onboarding a creative analytics platform 

Cameron used Motion to generate an auto-populating report that measures all ad destinations within any timeframe. This report alone has saved HexClad’s marketing team 10+ hours per week — allowing them to refocus on iteration and revenue-driving strategy. 

The next step was executing their phased workflow. With Motion, London shipped and analyzed over 150 unique ad creatives in each week-long sprint. 

He then used Motion's Top Creatives, Video Iteration, and Comparative Analysis reports to:

1. Identify winning creative, copy, headings, landing pages, and hooks
2. Discover where in the video funnel viewers were taking action
3. Compare video vs. static imagery performance, analyze influencer stats, and share these findings with exportable URLs

Under their 5-step creative reporting plan, HexClad built out a library of top-performing creative and scaled spend on top-of-funnel channels by 60%. 

"The opportunities to extract value from our creative are truly endless with Motion. We could stop producing new creative over the next year and still drive sales by simply iterating on our existing assets." - London Spilker, ecommerce manager at HexClad   

Creative reporting is now the “foundation” of HexClad’s paid media playbook

As coworkers who once referred to creative reporting as a necessary evil, Cameron and London now see it as an essential, value-add component of HexClad's paid media strategy. In their words: 

"You can't test creative for just seven days or once every two weeks. It's a continuous process that reveals crucial elements leading to any brand's continued growth."