2026 Creative Strategy: What Top Experts Wish You Knew

**Evan Lee:** So I'm thinking I started off with some like some softball questions here. Sarah, I'm gonna throw the first one to you. So I'm curious so far, um, what have you learned this year and like what do you plan to focus on moving forward?

**Sarah Levinger:** Oh, it was so hard to like distill this down to just one or two things 'cause I feel like I have like completely morphed as a marketer this year 'cause it started off real crazy. Um, couple of things that I took away from 2025 that I'm definitely taking into 2026. The brands that I think are doing the best and have the healthiest like creative strategy, healthiest ad accounts are usually the ones that lead with a little bit of organic from what I've seen. Like I think the organic side of things is, I mean we could talk about that for ages and ages. But the reason that that kind of channel is working for these brands is because they test a lot of their convictions over there. So outside of channel, I mean we could you could always test all kinds of different channels in marketing, but these brands that are winning the most are the ones that provide some sort of like struggle for their customers to attach to. So lots and lots of things that we could do with that in 2026. It's the conviction for me that I'm like, if you don't have some sort of an enemy that you can pit your brand against so that your customers can fight with you, it's gonna be really hard to scale in 2026 and beyond, especially with all the noise that we see in the industry. So yeah, conviction. That's like my one big takeaway.

**Evan Lee:** Got to have it. Got to have it. So everybody in the chat, this is how it's gonna work. What I want you to do, I didn't I I freaking didn't even kick off with my housekeeping. Look to your top right. Look to your top right. There's a Q and A tab. Throw all your questions in there and upvote, okay? 'Cause like that's where we're gonna pull from for later in this conversation. And of course, Lee, Mirella, Sarah, we're also gonna collaborate here. So if there's any thoughts to throw back and forth, we should just throw it at each other along the way. So Sarah, I already know I want to follow up with some organic questions, but let's kick it to Lee first. I'm curious in your world, like any overarching learnings this year that you have uh basically used to build your focus for the year coming ahead?

**Lee Joselowitz:** Absolutely. And I'm excited to follow Sarah because I think uh in addition to conviction, the thing that I keep going back to and if I were to really distill, and and I agree with you, it's so hard to distill it down to, you know, what is the one priority. But I think it really comes down to building creative systems that earn trust. And I think systems is key and I think trust is key. And I think the way to do that is knowing who you're talking to. So the the persona conversation we're all having, but also very importantly, knowing who they trust and then being able to amplify those voices and those stories. So you end up creating diversity, which is another big buzzword, in both the who, like who is saying the message, who is telling the story, as well as the what, what is the message, what is the story, and then of course also the how, like how how are we delivering that, how are we showing that. And I think if you hit on all of those buckets, having that persona first strategy, having that diversity and um building trust, I think you'll you'll win in 2026.

**Evan Lee:** I love that. Some people have expertise and they can't always describe why they do what they do and they just know it. But with the systems, it's able to be able to say like, okay, I know it and here's why. So putting that reasoning behind the why is so freaking important. I love it, Lee. And then Mirella, on your end, this year's learnings, how have they been? What's the top priority for you these days?

**Mirella Crespi:** Ooh, those are like two separate answers. Biggest learning I think, um, what I've seen across the board with the hundreds of brands we work with, brands and agencies is everyone just kind of realized the importance of hiring a creative strategist. Um, even brands who before would outsource that to different creative partners. They still work with like five to seven different creative partners because they spend that much across so many channels. But just the importance of having a kind of centralized creative intelligence agency within your team that's helping bridge that gap between the the media spend and the creative. And honestly, like I've seen a huge improvement in how we work with these brands because if you have that person that truly understands the brand, that knows how to brief a creative partner, that knows how to brief, you know, your organic team or the creators you work with or whoever, it's just makes everything kind of click and fall into place. Um, so I think that was just kind of like an aha moment for me and now whenever we are talking to new potential partners, we're like, I hope they have an in-house creative strategist that just like really gets their brand and can be our point of contact because it's just like makes everything better.

**Evan Lee:** Huge. Mirella, and then with that learning, I guess it's a question of priority next. So it's like with that in mind, what's what's a top priority that you're thinking about right now?

**Mirella Crespi:** So right now, like these last few weeks have been just completely revamping our scopes and processes and workflows because we cannot carry the same SOPs from 2025 into 2026. And it's just literally the nature of our business that it's just like, okay, this is broken, let's just go build a new one. Not only because of AI and how it's challenging how we do things, but also because of these massive algorithm shifts that took place. And we're having to like literally go back and like revisit our, you know, creative production cycles and how we are going to actually be delivering value and helping these brands scale um their paid ads. And I could keep going on and on about it, but that's pretty much it.

**Sarah Levinger:** I love it. I love it. I love it.

**Evan Lee:** So interesting how it all points back to the systems piece and I do want to talk about the systems and the team behind it, but I think the right place to start is where Sarah kicked us off at on the organic side of things. So Sarah, you got to say more words about like organic and why you're thinking about it and how it's coming together in this uh in this new world.

**Sarah Levinger:** Yes. Oddly enough, um I have yet to meet a whole lot of teams that have like a dedicated team just for organic, which I'm like, this is fascinating. Usually organic is used almost as like a catch all for things that come out of the paid ecosystem. If it's like a decent concept, we may alter it a little bit and throw it up on our socials. Even if you have a dedicated person that's just doing organic, often they're split apart. It's like organic's a totally different ecosystem than paid. In my mind as a creative strategist, they're both the same. It's content. It doesn't matter whether one has a trust fund or not. Like content is content and these days as a creative strategist, I think you have to get really good at making micro movies. Micro movies. So one of the things that I've seen Motion do recently and I've followed this ad religiously all over LinkedIn 'cause I was like, this is the funniest ad I've ever seen. You guys did an ad of some sort of treasure hunters that like came upon this like amazing orb of something and they were like, give us the secret. And it was like, what do you want to know? Like the dreams of the universe. And they were like, no, we just want to know how to make our ads hit. And that was the funniest ad I've ever seen. I was like, this, micro movies are going to become like the biggest trend I think in in 2026. So you can think of these as like snippets of like the most interesting man in the world, snippets of like um the man your man could smell like, similar concepts to that where we're putting our message, I would say, into a concept that people can actually attach to emotionally instead of just like straight A to framework where we're just going to start with a hook and then move into like some sort of desire and then into the like we've seen that kind of play out and it just flatlines every single time if we start overusing it in the ad account. So on the organic side, these micro movies are going to be popping up here all over the place because you can create them a lot easier with AI. But secondary to that, I personally believe if you're going to put volume into something, put it into organic. Put your volume into organic and then you can take those concepts that are working outside of in a free ecosystem, stick it into your paid ecosystem and start really honing them down to things that sell well. So I'm like, I'm looking at this a whole lot differently this year now that we have volume. I'm like, stick it in organic.

**Lee Joselowitz:** I I'd love to add to to that whole spiel. I could not agree more and I can also emphasize that some of our best performing ads across our client roster in 2025 were all trend-based. We're all like what is trending on organic and how can we make a a good ad out of that or maybe it's even just the the exact organic post is a good ad in itself. To your point. So I think that that's that's such a huge and valuable point.

**Mirella Crespi:** Yeah, absolutely. Like when we put together concepts and we're presenting to a brand, like here's the research that came from understanding your audience and your competitors, like there is the like what's going on in organic fuse slides where it's just like searching those topics and keywords and just like what are people naturally creating content around because you want to make sure it makes sense and like Lee like you said, there's so much that you can borrow from that in terms of like ideas for hooks for creatives and so on. Um, we have this like massive what we call video techniques database that all it is is like a DM chat with my entire team that every time we see organic content that uses a transition in a cool way, a sound in an interesting way, a new effect, a new this, we like save it and it has this like massive notion um references. So when our creative strategy team is building storyboards, we're literally grabbing the gifts from this techniques database because then it's just like you when you are scripting ads in this mindset of like, okay, I need to write like a strong hook and then I need to agitate the problem and then introduce the product and then add social proof, you can get so stuck in just like like only these visuals, but then if you like sprinkle on top like these techniques from organic, it definitely helps.

**Evan Lee:** So this really gets me thinking about like how to, speaking about systems. So it's one thing building the system and it's another thing like staffing it and like who does the work here. And something that I'm always curious about and I probably have a follow up after as my mind's working, is like is the creative strategist and how I've kind of been seeing the world scope expanding where it starts to think about what does organic first content look like. Because the main question that I am curious about and and Sarah I'll throw it to you first, are these the same skill sets? Like making direct response ads and making things that will do well on organic? Are those the same skill sets in your opinion? Yes or no?

**Sarah Levinger:** Ooh, that's a really good question. Not prepared for this one. Okay. Are they the same skill set? Um, I think on the production side, I'd say yes, 'cause like I said, they're both content. It's just content. If you can make good content, you can get attention and if you can make, you know, good ads, you can get attention. The only difference I would say is aligning with somebody's need to purchase something, that's a different skill set than just creating good content. So in that respect, like content can get you the eyeballs you need and the people that are probably well aligned to your products. Getting them to make an actual like purchase, pushing behavior, that's a different skill set that I think that a lot of people, especially if you're, you know, a direct response marketer, that's where your skill set comes in. The sell though, I will say, which is really interesting, you can get good at content, get good at direct response marketing. The sell is different than it used to be. Like especially in 2025, 2026, it's not nearly as blatant as we saw when UGC started to come up. Like as soon as UGC came into the ecosystem, it was like AIDA, man, every single one of these and they just printed. It was like, holy cow, this is amazing. Now all of a sudden, you can use AIDA and people just scroll right past it as soon as they hear you transition to the next piece of it. So, to Mirella's point, you got to get good at kind of a subtle sell this year. It's all about that like subtlety. Yeah.

**Lee Joselowitz:** I agree with that 100%. It's about it's like believable. I think an ad has to be And I know I talk about trust so much, but I I kind of feel like um trust optimization for me is sort of like the new conversion optimization. Like stop thinking so much about the CTA and the like this is the formula. No, like think think about like how are you building trust with your audience? How are you making something believable? How are you sharing a story? I think that that's like the thinking that needs to kind of change now to be successful. And I think a really strong creative strategist, I agree with all of Sarah's points. I'll also say that I think collaboration is one of the key skills. I don't think that a creative strategist needs or or even is humanly able or possible to do all the things that is expected of a creative strategist today and moving forward. I think that person has to get really good at knowing what they're good at, what they're not good at, who they need to work with, who they need to collaborate with, who they need to bring in to to get the ultimate desired results.

**Mirella Crespi:** Yeah, and if you don't invest in that, you are fighting the hardest fight because it's always just going to be a race to the bottom and it's just going to be about like pricing and offers and discounts and like, you know, you're always trying to go with the DR scarcity, urgency approach to try and sell your product when in reality, if you take a step back and you're like brands that actually have a brand, they can charge like a lot more and they don't have to like work so hard to try and get that sale. Um, I think you you have to do both, right? You have to have a strong direct response strategy to win on paid social, but having um the brand that builds trust and the storytelling and all that will only make your life easier.

**Sarah Levinger:** Yep. 100%. I agree. No notes. I mean the the only thing I will add to like both of these lovely ladies, you guys are so smart. Um, one of the things that I will add is if anybody is metric focused, especially at like the top of the brand, the only thing that you can do is like we talked about before, tag stuff. Just tag everything you've got and show them we've actually got numbers behind this art that we've created. That's about the only way that I've been able to kind of work around it is like, all right, they don't believe that like what they don't believe me when I say that we should run more branded stuff, more focused stuff, then what I need to do is I need to go back and show them that artwork can also perform incredibly well as long as you do it incredibly well. So yeah, tag stuff. Just tag it.

**Lee Joselowitz:** I'd love to add to that whole spiel. I could not agree more and I can also emphasize that some of our best performing ads across our client roster in 2025 were all trend-based. We're all like what is trending on organic and how can we make a a good ad out of that or maybe it's even just the the exact organic post is a good ad in itself. To your point. So I think that that's that's such a huge and valuable point.

**Mirella Crespi:** Yeah, absolutely. Like when we put together concepts and we're presenting to a brand, like here's the research that came from understanding your audience and your competitors, like there is the like what's going on in organic fuse slides where it's just like searching those topics and keywords and just like what are people naturally creating content around because you want to make sure it makes sense and like Lee like you said, there's so much that you can borrow from that in terms of like ideas for hooks for creatives and so on. Um, we have this like massive what we call video techniques database that all it is is like a DM chat with my entire team that every time we see organic content that uses a transition in a cool way, a sound in an interesting way, a new effect, a new this, we like save it and it has this like massive notion um references. So when our creative strategy team is building storyboards, we're literally grabbing the gifts from this techniques database because then it's just like you when you are scripting ads in this mindset of like, okay, I need to write like a strong hook and then I need to agitate the problem and then introduce the product and then add social proof, you can get so stuck in just like like only these visuals, but then if you like sprinkle on top like these techniques from organic, it definitely helps.

**Evan Lee:** So this really gets me thinking about like how to, speaking about systems. So it's one thing building the system and it's another thing like staffing it and like who does the work here. And something that I'm always curious about and I probably have a follow up after as my mind's working, is like is the creative strategist and how I've kind of been seeing the world scope expanding where it starts to think about what does organic first content look like. Because the main question that I am curious about and and Sarah I'll throw it to you first, are these the same skill sets? Like making direct response ads and making things that will do well on organic? Are those the same skill sets in your opinion? Yes or no?

**Sarah Levinger:** Ooh, that's a really good question. Not prepared for this one. Okay. Are they the same skill set? Um, I think on the production side, I'd say yes, 'cause like I said, they're both content. It's just content. If you can make good content, you can get attention and if you can make, you know, good ads, you can get attention. The only difference I would say is aligning with somebody's need to purchase something, that's a different skill set than just creating good content. So in that respect, like content can get you the eyeballs you need and the people that are probably well aligned to your products. Getting them to make an actual like purchase, pushing behavior, that's a different skill set that I think that a lot of people, especially if you're, you know, a direct response marketer, that's where your skill set comes in. The sell though, I will say, which is really interesting, you can get good at content, get good at direct response marketing. The sell is different than it used to be. Like especially in 2025, 2026, it's not nearly as blatant as we saw when UGC started to come up. Like as soon as UGC came into the ecosystem, it was like AIDA, man, every single one of these and they just printed. It was like, holy cow, this is amazing. Now all of a sudden, you can use AIDA and people just scroll right past it as soon as they hear you transition to the next piece of it. So, to Mirella's point, you got to get good at kind of a subtle sell this year. It's all about that like subtlety. Yeah.

**Lee Joselowitz:** I agree with that 100%. It's about it's like believable. I think an ad has to be And I know I talk about trust so much, but I I kind of feel like um trust optimization for me is sort of like the new conversion optimization. Like stop thinking so much about the CTA and the like this is the formula. No, like think think about like how are you building trust with your audience? How are you making something believable? How are you sharing a story? I think that that's like the thinking that needs to kind of change now to be successful. And I think a really strong creative strategist, I agree with all of Sarah's points. I'll also say that I think collaboration is one of the key skills. I don't think that a creative strategist needs or or even is humanly able or possible to do all the things that is expected of a creative strategist today and moving forward. I think that person has to get really good at knowing what they're good at, what they're not good at, who they need to work with, who they need to collaborate with, who they need to bring in to to get the ultimate desired results.

**Mirella Crespi:** Yeah, and if you don't invest in that, you are fighting the hardest fight because it's always just going to be a race to the bottom and it's just going to be about like pricing and offers and discounts and like, you know, you're always trying to go with the DR scarcity, urgency approach to try and sell your product when in reality, if you take a step back and you're like brands that actually have a brand, they can charge like a lot more and they don't have to like work so hard to try and get that sale. Um, I think you you have to do both, right? You have to have a strong direct response strategy to win on paid social, but having um the brand that builds trust and the storytelling and all that will only make your life easier.

**Sarah Levinger:** Yep. 100%. I agree. No notes. I mean the the only thing I will add to like both of these lovely ladies, you guys are so smart. Um, one of the things that I will add is if anybody is metric focused, especially at like the top of the brand, the only thing that you can do is like we talked about before, tag stuff. Just tag everything you've got and show them we've actually got numbers behind this art that we've created. That's about the only way that I've been able to kind of work around it is like, all right, they don't believe that like what they don't believe me when I say that we should run more branded stuff, more focused stuff, then what I need to do is I need to go back and show them that artwork can also perform incredibly well as long as you do it incredibly well. So yeah, tag stuff. Just tag it.

**Lee Joselowitz:** I'd love to add to that whole spiel. I could not agree more and I can also emphasize that some of our best performing ads across our client roster in 2025 were all trend-based. We're all like what is trending on organic and how can we make a a good ad out of that or maybe it's even just the the exact organic post is a good ad in itself. To your point. So I think that that's that's such a huge and valuable point.

**Mirella Crespi:** Yeah, absolutely. Like when we put together concepts and we're presenting to a brand, like here's the research that came from understanding your audience and your competitors, like there is the like what's going on in organic fuse slides where it's just like searching those topics and keywords and just like what are people naturally creating content around because you want to make sure it makes sense and like Lee like you said, there's so much that you can borrow from that in terms of like ideas for hooks for creatives and so on. Um, we have this like massive what we call video techniques database that all it is is like a DM chat with my entire team that every time we see organic content that uses a transition in a cool way, a sound in an interesting way, a new effect, a new this, we like save it and it has this like massive notion um references. So when our creative strategy team is building storyboards, we're literally grabbing the gifts from this techniques database because then it's just like you when you are scripting ads in this mindset of like, okay, I need to write like a strong hook and then I need to agitate the problem and then introduce the product and then add social proof, you can get so stuck in just like like only these visuals, but then if you like sprinkle on top like these techniques from organic, it definitely helps.

**Evan Lee:** So this really gets me thinking about like how to, speaking about systems. So it's one thing building the system and it's another thing like staffing it and like who does the work here. And something that I'm always curious about and I probably have a follow up after as my mind's working, is like is the creative strategist and how I've kind of been seeing the world scope expanding where it starts to think about what does organic first content look like. Because the main question that I am curious about and and Sarah I'll throw it to you first, are these the same skill sets? Like making direct response ads and making things that will do well on organic? Are those the same skill sets in your opinion? Yes or no?

**Sarah Levinger:** Ooh, that's a really good question. Not prepared for this one. Okay. Are they the same skill set? Um, I think on the production side, I'd say yes, 'cause like I said, they're both content. It's just content. If you can make good content, you can get attention and if you can make, you know, good ads, you can get attention. The only difference I would say is aligning with somebody's need to purchase something, that's a different skill set than just creating good content. So in that respect, like content can get you the eyeballs you need and the people that are probably well aligned to your products. Getting them to make an actual like purchase, pushing behavior, that's a different skill set that I think that a lot of people, especially if you're, you know, a direct response marketer, that's where your skill set comes in. The sell though, I will say, which is really interesting, you can get good at content, get good at direct response marketing. The sell is different than it used to be. Like especially in 2025, 2026, it's not nearly as blatant as we saw when UGC started to come up. Like as soon as UGC came into the ecosystem, it was like AIDA, man, every single one of these and they just printed. It was like, holy cow, this is amazing. Now all of a sudden, you can use AIDA and people just scroll right past it as soon as they hear you transition to the next piece of it. So, to Mirella's point, you got to get good at kind of a subtle sell this year. It's all about that like subtlety. Yeah.

**Lee Joselowitz:** I agree with that 100%. It's about it's like believable. I think an ad has to be And I know I talk about trust so much, but I I kind of feel like um trust optimization for me is sort of like the new conversion optimization. Like stop thinking so much about the CTA and the like this is the formula. No, like think think about like how are you building trust with your audience? How are you making something believable? How are you sharing a story? I think that that's like the thinking that needs to kind of change now to be successful. And I think a really strong creative strategist, I agree with all of Sarah's points. I'll also say that I think collaboration is one of the key skills. I don't think that a creative strategist needs or or even is humanly able or possible to do all the things that is expected of a creative strategist today and moving forward. I think that person has to get really good at knowing what they're good at, what they're not good at, who they need to work with, who they need to collaborate with, who they need to bring in to to get the ultimate desired results.

**Mirella Crespi:** Yeah, and if you don't invest in that, you are fighting the hardest fight because it's always just going to be a race to the bottom and it's just going to be about like pricing and offers and discounts and like, you know, you're always trying to go with the DR scarcity, urgency approach to try and sell your product when in reality, if you take a step back and you're like brands that actually have a brand, they can charge like a lot more and they don't have to like work so hard to try and get that sale. Um, I think you you have to do both, right? You have to have a strong direct response strategy to win on paid social, but having um the brand that builds trust and the storytelling and all that will only make your life easier.

**Sarah Levinger:** Yep. 100%. I agree. No notes. I mean the the only thing I will add to like both of these lovely ladies, you guys are so smart. Um, one of the things that I will add is if anybody is metric focused, especially at like the top of the brand, the only thing that you can do is like we talked about before, tag stuff. Just tag everything you've got and show them we've actually got numbers behind this art that we've created. That's about the only way that I've been able to kind of work around it is like, all right, they don't believe that like what they don't believe me when I say that we should run more branded stuff, more focused stuff, then what I need to do is I need to go back and show them that artwork can also perform incredibly well as long as you do it incredibly well. So yeah, tag stuff. Just tag it.

**Lee Joselowitz:** I'd love to add to that whole spiel. I could not agree more and I can also emphasize that some of our best performing ads across our client roster in 2025 were all trend-based. We're all like what is trending on organic and how can we make a a good ad out of that or maybe it's even just the the exact organic post is a good ad in itself. To your point. So I think that that's that's such a huge and valuable point.

**Mirella Crespi:** Yeah, absolutely. Like when we put together concepts and we're presenting to a brand, like here's the research that came from understanding your audience and your competitors, like there is the like what's going on in organic fuse slides where it's just like searching those topics and keywords and just like what are people naturally creating content around because you want to make sure it makes sense and like Lee like you said, there's so much that you can borrow from that in terms of like ideas for hooks for creatives and so on. Um, we have this like massive what we call video techniques database that all it is is like a DM chat with my entire team that every time we see organic content that uses a transition in a cool way, a sound in an interesting way, a new effect, a new this, we like save it and it has this like massive notion um references. So when our creative strategy team is building storyboards, we're literally grabbing the gifts from this techniques database because then it's just like you when you are scripting ads in this mindset of like, okay, I need to write like a strong hook and then I need to agitate the problem and then introduce the product and then add social proof, you can get so stuck in just like like only these visuals, but then if you like sprinkle on top like these techniques from organic, it definitely helps.

**Evan Lee:** So this really gets me thinking about like how to, speaking about systems. So it's one thing building the system and it's another thing like staffing it and like who does the work here. And something that I'm always curious about and I probably have a follow up after as my mind's working, is like is the creative strategist and how I've kind of been seeing the world scope expanding where it starts to think about what does organic first content look like. Because the main question that I am curious about and and Sarah I'll throw it to you first, are these the same skill sets? Like making direct response ads and making things that will do well on organic? Are those the same skill sets in your opinion? Yes or no?

**Sarah Levinger:** Ooh, that's a really good question. Not prepared for this one. Okay. Are they the same skill set? Um, I think on the production side, I'd say yes, 'cause like I said, they're both content. It's just content. If you can make good content, you can get attention and if you can make, you know, good ads, you can get attention. The only difference I would say is aligning with somebody's need to purchase something, that's a different skill set than just creating good content. So in that respect, like content can get you the eyeballs you need and the people that are probably well aligned to your products. Getting them to make an actual like purchase, pushing behavior, that's a different skill set that I think that a lot of people, especially if you're, you know, a direct response marketer, that's where your skill set comes in. The sell though, I will say, which is really interesting, you can get good at content, get good at direct response marketing. The sell is different than it used to be. Like especially in 2025, 2026, it's not nearly as blatant as we saw when UGC started to come up. Like as soon as UGC came into the ecosystem, it was like AIDA, man, every single one of these and they just printed. It was like, holy cow, this is amazing. Now all of a sudden, you can use AIDA and people just scroll right past it as soon as they hear you transition to the next piece of it. So, to Mirella's point, you got to get good at kind of a subtle sell this year. It's all about that like subtlety. Yeah.

**Lee Joselowitz:** I agree with that 100%. It's about it's like believable. I think an ad has to be And I know I talk about trust so much, but I I kind of feel like um trust optimization for me is sort of like the new conversion optimization. Like stop thinking so much about the CTA and the like this is the formula. No, like think think about like how are you building trust with your audience? How are you making something believable? How are you sharing a story? I think that that's like the thinking that needs to kind of change now to be successful. And I think a really strong creative strategist, I agree with all of Sarah's points. I'll also say that I think collaboration is one of the key skills. I don't think that a creative strategist needs or or even is humanly able or possible to do all the things that is expected of a creative strategist today and moving forward. I think that person has to get really good at knowing what they're good at, what they're not good at, who they need to work with, who they need to collaborate with, who they need to bring in to to get the ultimate desired results.

**Mirella Crespi:** Yeah, and if you don't invest in that, you are fighting the hardest fight because it's always just going to be a race to the bottom and it's just going to be about like pricing and offers and discounts and like, you know, you're always trying to go with the DR scarcity, urgency approach to try and sell your product when in reality, if you take a step back and you're like brands that actually have a brand, they can charge like a lot more and they don't have to like work so hard to try and get that sale. Um, I think you you have to do both, right? You have to have a strong direct response strategy to win on paid social, but having um the brand that builds trust and the storytelling and all that will only make your life easier.

**Sarah Levinger:** Yep. 100%. I agree. No notes. I mean the the only thing I will add to like both of these lovely ladies, you guys are so smart. Um, one of the things that I will add is if anybody is metric focused, especially at like the top of the brand, the only thing that you can do is like we talked about before, tag stuff. Just tag everything you've got and show them we've actually got numbers behind this art that we've created. That's about the only way that I've been able to kind of work around it is like, all right, they don't believe that like what they don't believe me when I say that we should run more branded stuff, more focused stuff, then what I need to do is I need to go back and show them that artwork can also perform incredibly well as long as you do it incredibly well. So yeah, tag stuff. Just tag it.

**Lee Joselowitz:** I'd love to add to that whole spiel. I could not agree more and I can also emphasize that some of our best performing ads across our client roster in 2025 were all trend-based. We're all like what is trending on organic and how can we make a a good ad out of that or maybe it's even just the the exact organic post is a good ad in itself. To your point. So I think that that's that's such a huge and valuable point.

**Mirella Crespi:** Yeah, absolutely. Like when we put together concepts and we're presenting to a brand, like here's the research that came from understanding your audience and your competitors, like there is the like what's going on in organic fuse slides where it's just like searching those topics and keywords and just like what are people naturally creating content around because you want to make sure it makes sense and like Lee like you said, there's so much that you can borrow from that in terms of like ideas for hooks for creatives and so on. Um, we have this like massive what we call video techniques database that all it is is like a DM chat with my entire team that every time we see organic content that uses a transition in a cool way, a sound in an interesting way, a new effect, a new this, we like save it and it has this like massive notion um references. So when our creative strategy team is building storyboards, we're literally grabbing the gifts from this techniques database because then it's just like you when you are scripting ads in this mindset of like, okay, I need to write like a strong hook and then I need to agitate the problem and then introduce the product and then add social proof, you can get so stuck in just like like only these visuals, but then if you like sprinkle on top like these techniques from organic, it definitely helps.

**Evan Lee:** So this really gets me thinking about like how to, speaking about systems. So it's one thing building the system and it's another thing like staffing it and like who does the work here. And something that I'm always curious about and I probably have a follow up after as my mind's working, is like is the creative strategist and how I've kind of been seeing the world scope expanding where it starts to think about what does organic first content look like. Because the main question that I am curious about and and Sarah I'll throw it to you first, are these the same skill sets? Like making direct response ads and making things that will do well on organic? Are those the same skill sets in your opinion? Yes or no?

**Sarah Levinger:** Ooh, that's a really good question. Not prepared for this one. Okay. Are they the same skill set? Um, I think on the production side, I'd say yes, 'cause like I said, they're both content. It's just content. If you can make good content, you can get attention and if you can make, you know, good ads, you can get attention. The only difference I would say is aligning with somebody's need to purchase something, that's a different skill set than just creating good content. So in that respect, like content can get you the eyeballs you need and the people that are probably well aligned to your products. Getting them to make an actual like purchase, pushing behavior, that's a different skill set that I think that a lot of people, especially if you're, you know, a direct response marketer, that's where your skill set comes in. The sell though, I will say, which is really interesting, you can get good at content, get good at direct response marketing. The sell is different than it used to be. Like especially in 2025, 2026, it's not nearly as blatant as we saw when UGC started to come up. Like as soon as UGC came into the ecosystem, it was like AIDA, man, every single one of these and they just printed. It was like, holy cow, this is amazing. Now all of a sudden, you can use AIDA and people just scroll right past it as soon as they hear you transition to the next piece of it. So, to Mirella's point, you got to get good at kind of a subtle sell this year. It's all about that like subtlety. Yeah.

**Lee Joselowitz:** I agree with that 100%. It's about it's like believable. I think an ad has to be And I know I talk about trust so much, but I I kind of feel like um trust optimization for me is sort of like the new conversion optimization. Like stop thinking so much about the CTA and the like this is the formula. No, like think think about like how are you building trust with your audience? How are you making something believable? How are you sharing a story? I think that that's like the thinking that needs to kind of change now to be successful. And I think a really strong creative strategist, I agree with all of Sarah's points. I'll also say that I think collaboration is one of the key skills. I don't think that a creative strategist needs or or even is humanly able or possible to do all the things that is expected of a creative strategist today and moving forward. I think that person has to get really good at knowing what they're good at, what they're not good at, who they need to work with, who they need to collaborate with, who they need to bring in to to get the ultimate desired results.

**Mirella Crespi:** Yeah, and if you don't invest in that, you are fighting the hardest fight because it's always just going to be a race to the bottom and it's just going to be about like pricing and offers and discounts and like, you know, you're always trying to go with the DR scarcity, urgency approach to try and sell your product when in reality, if you take a step back and you're like brands that actually have a brand, they can charge like a lot more and they don't have to like work so hard to try and get that sale. Um, I think you you have to do both, right? You have to have a strong direct response strategy to win on paid social, but having um the brand that builds trust and the storytelling and all that will only make your life easier.

**Sarah Levinger:** Yep. 100%. I agree. No notes. I mean the the only thing I will add to like both of these lovely ladies, you guys are so smart. Um, one of the things that I will add is if anybody is metric focused, especially at like the top of the brand, the only thing that you can do is like we talked about before, tag stuff. Just tag everything you've got and show them we've actually got numbers behind this art that we've created. That's about the only way that I've been able to kind of work around it is like, all right, they don't believe that like what they don't believe me when I say that we should run more branded stuff, more focused stuff, then what I need to do is I need to go back and show them that artwork can also perform incredibly well as long as you do it incredibly well. So yeah, tag stuff. Just tag it.

**Lee Joselowitz:** I'd love to add to that whole spiel. I could not agree more and I can also emphasize that some of our best performing ads across our client roster in 2025 were all trend-based. We're all like what is trending on organic and how can we make a a good ad out of that or maybe it's even just the the exact organic post is a good ad in itself. To your point. So I think that that's that's such a huge and valuable point.

**Mirella Crespi:** Yeah, absolutely. Like when we put together concepts and we're presenting to a brand, like here's the research that came from understanding your audience and your competitors, like there is the like what's going on in organic fuse slides where it's just like searching those topics and keywords and just like what are people naturally creating content around because you want to make sure it makes sense and like Lee like you said, there's so much that you can borrow from that in terms of like ideas for hooks for creatives and so on. Um, we have this like massive what we call video techniques database that all it is is like a DM chat with my entire team that every time we see organic content that uses a transition in a cool way, a sound in an interesting way, a new effect, a new this, we like save it and it has this like massive notion um references. So when our creative strategy team is building storyboards, we're literally grabbing the gifts from this techniques database because then it's just like you when you are scripting ads in this mindset of like, okay, I need to write like a strong hook and then I need to agitate the problem and then introduce the product and then add social proof, you can get so stuck in just like like only these visuals, but then if you like sprinkle on top like these techniques from organic, it definitely helps.

**Evan Lee:** So this really gets me thinking about like how to, speaking about systems. So it's one thing building the system and it's another thing like staffing it and like who does the work here. And something that I'm always curious about and I probably have a follow up after as my mind's working, is like is the creative strategist and how I've kind of been seeing the world scope expanding where it starts to think about what does organic first content look like. Because the main question that I am curious about and and Sarah I'll throw it to you first, are these the same skill sets? Like making direct response ads and making things that will do well on organic? Are those the same skill sets in your opinion? Yes or no?

**Sarah Levinger:** Ooh, that's a really good question. Not prepared for this one. Okay. Are they the same skill set? Um, I think on the production side, I'd say yes, 'cause like I said, they're both content. It's just content. If you can make good content, you can get attention and if you can make, you know, good ads, you can get attention. The only difference I would say is aligning with somebody's need to purchase something, that's a different skill set than just creating good content. So in that respect, like content can get you the eyeballs you need and the people that are probably well aligned to your products. Getting them to make an actual like purchase, pushing behavior, that's a different skill set that I think that a lot of people, especially if you're, you know, a direct response marketer, that's where your skill set comes in. The sell though, I will say, which is really interesting, you can get good at content, get good at direct response marketing. The sell is different than it used to be. Like especially in 2025, 2026, it's not nearly as blatant as we saw when UGC started to come up. Like as soon as UGC came into the ecosystem, it was like AIDA, man, every single one of these and they just printed. It was like, holy cow, this is amazing. Now all of a sudden, you can use AIDA and people just scroll right past it as soon as they hear you transition to the next piece of it. So, to Mirella's point, you got to get good at kind of a subtle sell this year. It's all about that like subtlety. Yeah.

**Lee Joselowitz:** I agree with that 100%. It's about it's like believable. I think an ad has to be And I know I talk about trust so much, but I I kind of feel like um trust optimization for me is sort of like the new conversion optimization. Like stop thinking so much about the CTA and the like this is the formula. No, like think think about like how are you building trust with your audience? How are you making something believable? How are you sharing a story? I think that that's like the thinking that needs to kind of change now to be successful. And I think a really strong creative strategist, I agree with all of Sarah's points. I'll also say that I think collaboration is one of the key skills. I don't think that a creative strategist needs or or even is humanly able or possible to do all the things that is expected of a creative strategist today and moving forward. I think that person has to get really good at knowing what they're good at, what they're not good at, who they need to work with, who they need to collaborate with, who they need to bring in to to get the ultimate desired results.

**Mirella Crespi:** Yeah, and if you don't invest in that, you are fighting the hardest fight because it's always just going to be a race to the bottom and it's just going to be about like pricing and offers and discounts and like, you know, you're always trying to go with the DR scarcity, urgency approach to try and sell your product when in reality, if you take a step back and you're like brands that actually have a brand, they can charge like a lot more and they don't have to like work so hard to try and get that sale. Um, I think you you have to do both, right? You have to have a strong direct response strategy to win on paid social, but having um the brand that builds trust and the storytelling and all that will only make your life easier.

**Sarah Levinger:** Yep. 100%. I agree. No notes. I mean the the only thing I will add to like both of these lovely ladies, you guys are so smart. Um, one of the things that I will add is if anybody is metric focused, especially at like the top of the brand, the only thing that you can do is like we talked about before, tag stuff. Just tag everything you've got and show them we've actually got numbers behind this art that we've created. That's about the only way that I've been able to kind of work around it is like, all right, they don't believe that like what they don't believe me when I say that we should run more branded stuff, more focused stuff, then what I need to do is I need to go back and show them that artwork can also perform incredibly well as long as you do it incredibly well. So yeah, tag stuff. Just tag it.

**Lee Joselowitz:** I'd love to add to that whole spiel. I could not agree more and I can also emphasize that some of our best performing ads across our client roster in 2025 were all trend-based. We're all like what is trending on organic and how can we make a a good ad out of that or maybe it's even just the the exact organic post is a good ad in itself. To your point. So I think that that's that's such a huge and valuable point.

**Mirella Crespi:** Yeah, absolutely. Like when we put together concepts and we're presenting to a brand, like here's the research that came from understanding your audience and your competitors, like there is the like what's going on in organic fuse slides where it's just like searching those topics and keywords and just like what are people naturally creating content around because you want to make sure it makes sense and like Lee like you said, there's so much that you can borrow from that in terms of like ideas for hooks for creatives and so on. Um, we have this like massive what we call video techniques database that all it is is like a DM chat with my entire team that every time we see organic content that uses a transition in a cool way, a sound in an interesting way, a new effect, a new this, we like save it and it has this like massive notion um references. So when our creative strategy team is building storyboards, we're literally grabbing the gifts from this techniques database because then it's just like you when you are scripting ads in this mindset of like, okay, I need to write like a strong hook and then I need to agitate the problem and then introduce the product and then add social proof, you can get so stuck in just like like only these visuals, but then if you like sprinkle on top like these techniques from organic, it definitely helps.

**Evan Lee:** So this really gets me thinking about like how to, speaking about systems. So it's one thing building the system and it's another thing like staffing it and like who does the work here. And something that I'm always curious about and I probably have a follow up after as my mind's working, is like is the creative strategist and how I've kind of been seeing the world scope expanding where it starts to think about what does organic first content look like. Because the main question that I am curious about and and Sarah I'll throw it to you first, are these the same skill sets? Like making direct response ads and making things that will do well on organic? Are those the same skill sets in your opinion? Yes or no?

**Sarah Levinger:** Ooh, that's a really good question. Not prepared for this one. Okay. Are they the same skill set? Um, I think on the production side, I'd say yes, 'cause like I said, they're both content. It's just content. If you can make good content, you can get attention and if you can make, you know, good ads, you can get attention. The only difference I would say is aligning with somebody's need to purchase something, that's a different skill set than just creating good content. So in that respect, like content can get you the eyeballs you need and the people that are probably well aligned to your products. Getting them to make an actual like purchase, pushing behavior, that's a different skill set that I think that a lot of people, especially if you're, you know, a direct response marketer, that's where your skill set comes in. The sell though, I will say, which is really interesting, you can get good at content, get good at direct response marketing. The sell is different than it used to be. Like especially in 2025, 2026, it's not nearly as blatant as we saw when UGC started to come up. Like as soon as UGC came into the ecosystem, it was like AIDA, man, every single one of these and they just printed. It was like, holy cow, this is amazing. Now all of a sudden, you can use AIDA and people just scroll right past it as soon as they hear you transition to the next piece of it. So, to Mirella's point, you got to get good at kind of a subtle sell this year. It's all about that like subtlety. Yeah.

**Lee Joselowitz:** I agree with that 100%. It's about it's like believable. I think an ad has to be And I know I talk about trust so much, but I I kind of feel like um trust optimization for me is sort of like the new conversion optimization. Like stop thinking so much about the CTA and the like this is the formula. No, like think think about like how are you building trust with your audience? How are you making something believable? How are you sharing a story? I think that that's like the thinking that needs to kind of change now to be successful. And I think a really strong creative strategist, I agree with all of Sarah's points. I'll also say that I think collaboration is one of the key skills. I don't think that a creative strategist needs or or even is humanly able or possible to do all the things that is expected of a creative strategist today and moving forward. I think that person has to get really good at knowing what they're good at, what they're not good at, who they need to work with, who they need to collaborate with, who they need to bring in to to get the ultimate desired results.

**Mirella Crespi:** Yeah, and if you don't invest in that, you are fighting the hardest fight because it's always just going to be a race to the bottom and it's just going to be about like pricing and offers and discounts and like, you know, you're always trying to go with the DR scarcity, urgency approach to try and sell your product when in reality, if you take a step back and you're like brands that actually have a brand, they can charge like a lot more and they don't have to like work so hard to try and get that sale. Um, I think you you have to do both, right? You have to have a strong direct response strategy to win on paid social, but having um the brand that builds trust and the storytelling and all that will only make your life easier.

**Sarah Levinger:** Yep. 100%. I agree. No notes. I mean the the only thing I will add to like both of these lovely ladies, you guys are so smart. Um, one of the things that I will add is if anybody is metric focused, especially at like the top of the brand, the only thing that you can do is like we talked about before, tag stuff. Just tag everything you've got and show them we've actually got numbers behind this art that we've created. That's about the only way that I've been able to kind of work around it is like, all right, they don't believe that like what they don't believe me when I say that we should run more branded stuff, more focused stuff, then what I need to do is I need to go back and show them that artwork can also perform incredibly well as long as you do it incredibly well. So yeah, tag stuff. Just tag it.

**Lee Joselowitz:** I'd love to add to that whole spiel. I could not agree more and I can also emphasize that some of our best performing ads across our client roster in 2025 were all trend-based. We're all like what is trending on organic and how can we make a a good ad out of that or maybe it's even just the the exact organic post is a good ad in itself. To your point. So I think that that's that's such a huge and valuable point.

**Mirella Crespi:** Yeah, absolutely. Like when we put together concepts and we're presenting to a brand, like here's the research that came from understanding your audience and your competitors, like there is the like what's going on in organic fuse slides where it's just like searching those topics and keywords and just like what are people naturally creating content around because you want to make sure it makes sense and like Lee like you said, there's so much that you can borrow from that in terms of like ideas for hooks for creatives and so on. Um, we have this like massive what we call video techniques database that all it is is like a DM chat with my entire team that every time we see organic content that uses a transition in a cool way, a sound in an interesting way, a new effect, a new this, we like save it and it has this like massive notion um references. So when our creative strategy team is building storyboards, we're literally grabbing the gifts from this techniques database because then it's just like you when you are scripting ads in this mindset of like, okay, I need to write like a strong hook and then I need to agitate the problem and then introduce the product and then add social proof, you can get so stuck in just like like only these visuals, but then if you like sprinkle on top like these techniques from organic, it definitely helps.

**Evan Lee:** So this really gets me thinking about like how to, speaking about systems. So it's one thing building the system and it's another thing like staffing it and like who does the work here. And something that I'm always curious about and I probably have a follow up after as my mind's working, is like is the creative strategist and how I've kind of been seeing the world scope expanding where it starts to think about what does organic first content look like. Because the main question that I am curious about and and Sarah I'll throw it to you first, are these the same skill sets? Like making direct response ads and making things that will do well on organic? Are those the same skill sets in your opinion? Yes or no?

**Sarah Levinger:** Ooh, that's a really good question. Not prepared for this one. Okay. Are they the same skill set? Um, I think on the production side, I'd say yes, 'cause like I said, they're both content. It's just content. If you can make good content, you can get attention and if you can make, you know, good ads, you can get attention. The only difference I would say is aligning with somebody's need to purchase something, that's a different skill set than just creating good content. So in that respect, like content can get you the eyeballs you need and the people that are probably well aligned to your products. Getting them to make an actual like purchase, pushing behavior, that's a different skill set that I think that a lot of people, especially if you're, you know, a direct response marketer, that's where your skill set comes in. The sell though, I will say, which is really interesting, you can get good at content, get good at direct response marketing. The sell is different than it used to be. Like especially in 2025, 2026, it's not nearly as blatant as we saw when UGC started to come up. Like as soon as UGC came into the ecosystem, it was like AIDA, man, every single one of these and they just printed. It was like, holy cow, this is amazing. Now all of a sudden, you can use AIDA and people just scroll right past it as soon as they hear you transition to the next piece of it. So, to Mirella's point, you got to get good at kind of a subtle sell this year. It's all about that like subtlety. Yeah.

**Lee Joselowitz:** I agree with that 100%. It's about it's like believable. I think an ad has to be And I know I talk about trust so much, but I I kind of feel like um trust optimization for me is sort of like the new conversion optimization. Like stop thinking so much about the CTA and the like this is the formula. No, like think think about like how are you building trust with your audience? How are you making something believable? How are you sharing a story? I think that that's like the thinking that needs to kind of change now to be successful. And I think a really strong creative strategist, I agree with all of Sarah's points. I'll also say that I think collaboration is one of the key skills. I don't think that a creative strategist needs or or even is humanly able or possible to do all the things that is expected of a creative strategist today and moving forward. I think that person has to get really good at knowing what they're good at, what they're not good at, who they need to work with, who they need to collaborate with, who they need to bring in to to get the ultimate desired results.

**Mirella Crespi:** Yeah, and if you don't invest in that, you are fighting the hardest fight because it's always just going to be a race to the bottom and it's just going to be about like pricing and offers and discounts and like, you know, you're always trying to go with the DR scarcity, urgency approach to try and sell your product when in reality, if you take a step back and you're like brands that actually have a brand, they can charge like a lot more and they don't have to like work so hard to try and get that sale. Um, I think you you have to do both, right? You have to have a strong direct response strategy to win on paid social, but having um the brand that builds trust and the storytelling and all that will only make your life easier.

**Sarah Levinger:** Yep. 100%. I agree. No notes. I mean the the only thing I will add to like both of these lovely ladies, you guys are so smart. Um, one of the things that I will add is if anybody is metric focused, especially at like the top of the brand, the only thing that you can do is like we talked about before, tag stuff. Just tag everything you've got and show them we've actually got numbers behind this art that we've created. That's about the only way that I've been able to kind of work around it is like, all right, they don't believe that like what they don't believe me when I say that we should run more branded stuff, more focused stuff, then what I need to do is I need to go back and show them that artwork can also perform incredibly well as long as you do it incredibly well. So yeah, tag stuff. Just tag it.

**Lee Joselowitz:** I'd love to add to that whole spiel. I could not agree more and I can also emphasize that some of our best performing ads across our client roster in 2025 were all trend-based. We're all like what is trending on organic and how can we make a a good ad out of that or maybe it's even just the the exact organic post is a good ad in itself. To your point. So I think that that's that's such a huge and valuable point.

**Mirella Crespi:** Yeah, absolutely. Like when we put together concepts and we're presenting to a brand, like here's the research that came from understanding your audience and your competitors, like there is the like what's going on in organic fuse slides where it's just like searching those topics and keywords and just like what are people naturally creating content around because you want to make sure it makes sense and like Lee like you said, there's so much that you can borrow from that in terms of like ideas for hooks for creatives and so on. Um, we have this like massive what we call video techniques database that all it is is like a DM chat with my entire team that every time we see organic content that uses a transition in a cool way, a sound in an interesting way, a new effect, a new this, we like save it and it has this like massive notion um references. So when our creative strategy team is building storyboards, we're literally grabbing the gifts from this techniques database because then it's just like you when you are scripting ads in this mindset of like, okay, I need to write like a strong hook and then I need to agitate the problem and then introduce the product and then add social proof, you can get so stuck in just like like only these visuals, but then if you like sprinkle on top like these techniques from organic, it definitely helps.

**Evan Lee:** So this really gets me thinking about like how to, speaking about systems. So it's one thing building the system and it's another thing like staffing it and like who does the work here. And something that I'm always curious about and I probably have a follow up after as my mind's working, is like is the creative strategist and how I've kind of been seeing the world scope expanding where it starts to think about what does organic first content look like. Because the main question that I am curious about and and Sarah I'll throw it to you first, are these the same skill sets? Like making direct response ads and making things that will do well on organic? Are those the same skill sets in your opinion? Yes or no?

**Sarah Levinger:** Ooh, that's a really good question. Not prepared for this one. Okay. Are they the same skill set? Um, I think on the production side, I'd say yes, 'cause like I said, they're both content. It's just content. If you can make good content, you can get attention and if you can make, you know, good ads, you can get attention. The only difference I would say is aligning with somebody's need to purchase something, that's a different skill set than just creating good content. So in that respect, like content can get you the eyeballs you need and the people that are probably well aligned to your products. Getting them to make an actual like purchase, pushing behavior, that's a different skill set that I think that a lot of people, especially if you're, you know, a direct response marketer, that's where your skill set comes in. The sell though, I will say, which is really interesting, you can get good at content, get good at direct response marketing. The sell is different than it used to be. Like especially in 2025, 2026, it's not nearly as blatant as we saw when UGC started to come up. Like as soon as UGC came into the ecosystem, it was like AIDA, man, every single one of these and they just printed. It was like, holy cow, this is amazing. Now all of a sudden, you can use AIDA and people just scroll right past it as soon as they hear you transition to the next piece of it. So, to Mirella's point, you got to get good at kind of a subtle sell this year. It's all about that like subtlety. Yeah.

**Lee Joselowitz:** I agree with that 100%. It's about it's like believable. I think an ad has to be And I know I talk about trust so much, but I I kind of feel like um trust optimization for me is sort of like the new conversion optimization. Like stop thinking so much about the CTA and the like this is the formula. No, like think think about like how are you building trust with your audience? How are you making something believable? How are you sharing a story? I think that that's like the thinking that needs to kind of change now to be successful. And I think a really strong creative strategist, I agree with all of Sarah's points. I'll also say that I think collaboration is one of the key skills. I don't think that a creative strategist needs or or even is humanly able or possible to do all the things that is expected of a creative strategist today and moving forward. I think that person has to get really good at knowing what they're good at, what they're not good at, who they need to work with, who they need to collaborate with, who they need to bring in to to get the ultimate desired results.

**Mirella Crespi:** Yeah, and if you don't invest in that, you are fighting the hardest fight because it's always just going to be a race to the bottom and it's just going to be about like pricing and offers and discounts and like, you know, you're always trying to go with the DR scarcity, urgency approach to try and sell your product when in reality, if you take a step back and you're like brands that actually have a brand, they can charge like a lot more and they don't have to like work so hard to try and get that sale. Um, I think you you have to do both, right? You have to have a strong direct response strategy to win on paid social, but having um the brand that builds trust and the storytelling and all that will only make your life easier.

**Sarah Levinger:** Yep. 100%. I agree. No notes. I mean the the only thing I will add to like both of these lovely ladies, you guys are so smart. Um, one of the things that I will add is if anybody is metric focused, especially at like the top of the brand, the only thing that you can do is like we talked about before, tag stuff. Just tag everything you've got and show them we've actually got numbers behind this art that we've created. That's about the only way that I've been able to kind of work around it is like, all right, they don't believe that like what they don't believe me when I say that we should run more branded stuff, more focused stuff, then what I need to do is I need to go back and show them that artwork can also perform incredibly well as long as you do it incredibly well. So yeah, tag stuff. Just tag it.

**Lee Joselowitz:** I'd love to add to that whole spiel. I could not agree more and I can also emphasize that some of our best performing ads across our client roster in 2025 were all trend-based. We're all like what is trending on organic and how can we make a a good ad out of that or maybe it's even just the the exact organic post is a good ad in itself. To your point. So I think that that's that's such a huge and valuable point.

**Mirella Crespi:** Yeah, absolutely. Like when we put together concepts and we're presenting to a brand, like here's the research that came from understanding your audience and your competitors, like there is the like what's going on in organic fuse slides where it's just like searching those topics and keywords and just like what are people naturally creating content around because you want to make sure it makes sense and like Lee like you said, there's so much that you can borrow from that in terms of like ideas for hooks for creatives and so on. Um, we have this like massive what we call video techniques database that all it is is like a DM chat with my entire team that every time we see organic content that uses a transition in a cool way, a sound in an interesting way, a new effect, a new this, we like save it and it has this like massive notion um references. So when our creative strategy team is building storyboards, we're literally grabbing the gifts from this techniques database because then it's just like you when you are scripting ads in this mindset of like, okay, I need to write like a strong hook and then I need to agitate the problem and then introduce the product and then add social proof, you can get so stuck in just like like only these visuals, but then if you like sprinkle on top like these techniques from organic, it definitely helps.

**Evan Lee:** So this really gets me thinking about like how to, speaking about systems. So it's one thing building the system and it's another thing like staffing it and like who does the work here. And something that I'm always curious about and I probably have a follow up after as my mind's working, is like is the creative strategist and how I've kind of been seeing the world scope expanding where it starts to think about what does organic first content look like. Because the main question that I am curious about and and Sarah I'll throw it to you first, are these the same skill sets? Like making direct response ads and making things that will do well on organic? Are those the same skill sets in your opinion? Yes or no?

**Sarah Levinger:** Ooh, that's a really good question. Not prepared for this one. Okay. Are they the same skill set? Um, I think on the production side, I'd say yes, 'cause like I said, they're both content. It's just content. If you can make good content, you can get attention and if you can make, you know, good ads, you can get attention. The only difference I would say is aligning with somebody's need to purchase something, that's a different skill set than just creating good content. So in that respect, like content can get you the eyeballs you need and the people that are probably well aligned to your products. Getting them to make an actual like purchase, pushing behavior, that's a different skill set that I think that a lot of people, especially if you're, you know, a direct response marketer, that's where your skill set comes in. The sell though, I will say, which is really interesting, you can get good at content, get good at direct response marketing. The sell is different than it used to be. Like especially in 2025, 2026, it's not nearly as blatant as we saw when UGC started to come up. Like as soon as UGC came into the ecosystem, it was like AIDA, man, every single one of these and they just printed. It was like, holy cow, this is amazing. Now all of a sudden, you can use AIDA and people just scroll right past it as soon as they hear you transition to the next piece of it. So, to Mirella's point, you got to get good at kind of a subtle sell this year. It's all about that like subtlety. Yeah.

**Lee Joselowitz:** I agree with that 100%. It's about it's like believable. I think an ad has to be And I know I talk about trust so much, but I I kind of feel like um trust optimization for me is sort of like the new conversion optimization. Like stop thinking so much about the CTA and the like this is the formula. No, like think think about like how are you building trust with your audience? How are you making something believable? How are you sharing a story? I think that that's like the thinking that needs to kind of change now to be successful. And I think a really strong creative strategist, I agree with all of Sarah's points. I'll also say that I think collaboration is one of the key skills. I don't think that a creative strategist needs or or even is humanly able or possible to do all the things that is expected of a creative strategist today and moving forward. I think that person has to get really good at knowing what they're good at, what they're not good at, who they need to work with, who they need to collaborate with, who they need to bring in to to get the ultimate desired results.

**Mirella Crespi:** Yeah, and if you don't invest in that, you are fighting the hardest fight because it's always just going to be a race to the bottom and it's just going to be about like pricing and offers and discounts and like, you know, you're always trying to go with the DR scarcity, urgency approach to try and sell your product when in reality, if you take a step back and you're like brands that actually have a brand, they can charge like a lot more and they don't have to like work so hard to try and get that sale. Um, I think you you have to do both, right? You have to have a strong direct response strategy to win on paid social, but having um the brand that builds trust and the storytelling and all that will only make your life easier.

**Sarah Levinger:** Yep. 100%. I agree. No notes. I mean the the only thing I will add to like both of these lovely ladies, you guys are so smart. Um, one of the things that I will add is if anybody is metric focused, especially at like the top of the brand, the only thing that you can do is like we talked about before, tag stuff. Just tag everything you've got and show them we've actually got numbers behind this art that we've created. That's about the only way that I've been able to kind of work around it is like, all right, they don't believe that like what they don't believe me when I say that we should run more branded stuff, more focused stuff, then what I need to do is I need to go back and show them that artwork can also perform incredibly well as long as you do it incredibly well. So yeah, tag stuff. Just tag it.

**Lee Joselowitz:** I'd love to add to that whole spiel. I could not agree more and I can also emphasize that some of our best performing ads across our client roster in 2025 were all trend-based. We're all like what is trending on organic and how can we make a a good ad out of that or maybe it's even just the the exact organic post is a good ad in itself. To your point. So I think that that's that's such a huge and valuable point.

**Mirella Crespi:** Yeah, absolutely. Like when we put together concepts and we're presenting to a brand, like here's the research that came from understanding your audience and your competitors, like there is the like what's going on in organic fuse slides where it's just like searching those topics and keywords and just like what are people naturally creating content around because you want to make sure it makes sense and like Lee like you said, there's so much that you can borrow from that in terms of like ideas for hooks for creatives and so on. Um, we have this like massive what we call video techniques database that all it is is like a DM chat with my entire team that every time we see organic content that uses a transition in a cool way, a sound in an interesting way, a new effect, a new this, we like save it and it has this like massive notion um references. So when our creative strategy team is building storyboards, we're literally grabbing the gifts from this techniques database because then it's just like you when you are scripting ads in this mindset of like, okay, I need to write like a strong hook and then I need to agitate the problem and then introduce the product and then add social proof, you can get so stuck in just like like only these visuals, but then if you like sprinkle on top like these techniques from organic, it definitely helps.

**Evan Lee:** So this really gets me thinking about like how to, speaking about systems. So it's one thing building the system and it's another thing like staffing it and like who does the work here. And something that I'm always curious about and I probably have a follow up after as my mind's working, is like is the creative strategist and how I've kind of been seeing the world scope expanding where it starts to think about what does organic first content look like. Because the main question that I am curious about and and Sarah I'll throw it to you first, are these the same skill sets? Like making direct response ads and making things that will do well on organic? Are those the same skill sets in your opinion? Yes or no?

**Sarah Levinger:** Ooh, that's a really good question. Not prepared for this one. Okay. Are they the same skill set? Um, I think on the production side, I'd say yes, 'cause like I said, they're both content. It's just content. If you can make good content, you can get attention and if you can make, you know, good ads, you can get attention. The only difference I would say is aligning with somebody's need to purchase something, that's a different skill set than just creating good content. So in that respect, like content can get you the eyeballs you need and the people that are probably well aligned to your products. Getting them to make an actual like purchase, pushing behavior, that's a different skill set that I think that a lot of people, especially if you're, you know, a direct response marketer, that's where your skill set comes in. The sell though, I will say, which is really interesting, you can get good at content, get good at direct response marketing. The sell is different than it used to be. Like especially in 2025, 2026, it's not nearly as blatant as we saw when UGC started to come up. Like as soon as UGC came into the ecosystem, it was like AIDA, man, every single one of these and they just printed. It was like, holy cow, this is amazing. Now all of a sudden, you can use AIDA and people just scroll right past it as soon as they hear you transition to the next piece of it. So, to Mirella's point, you got to get good at kind of a subtle sell this year. It's all about that like subtlety. Yeah.

**Lee Joselowitz:** I agree with that 100%. It's about it's like believable. I think an ad has to be And I know I talk about trust so much, but I I kind of feel like um trust optimization for me is sort of like the new conversion optimization. Like stop thinking so much about the CTA and the like this is the formula. No, like think think about like how are you building trust with your audience? How are you making something believable? How are you sharing a story? I think that that's like the thinking that needs to kind of change now to be successful. And I think a really strong creative strategist, I agree with all of Sarah's points. I'll also say that I think collaboration is one of the key skills. I don't think that a creative strategist needs or or even is humanly able or possible to do all the things that is expected of a creative strategist today and moving forward. I think that person has to get really good at knowing what they're good at, what they're not good at, who they need to work with, who they need to collaborate with, who they need to bring in to to get the ultimate desired results.

**Mirella Crespi:** Yeah, and if you don't invest in that, you are fighting the hardest fight because it's always just going to be a race to the bottom and it's just going to be about like pricing and offers and discounts and like, you know, you're always trying to go with the DR scarcity, urgency approach to try and sell your product when in reality, if you take a step back and you're like brands that actually have a brand, they can charge like a lot more and they don't have to like work so hard to try and get that sale. Um, I think you you have to do both, right? You have to have a strong direct response strategy to win on paid social, but having um the brand that builds trust and the storytelling and all that will only make your life easier.

**Sarah Levinger:** Yep. 100%. I agree. No notes. I mean the the only thing I will add to like both of these lovely ladies, you guys are so smart. Um, one of the things that I will add is if anybody is metric focused, especially at like the top of the brand, the only thing that you can do is like we talked about before, tag stuff. Just tag everything you've got and show them we've actually got numbers behind this art that we've created. That's about the only way that I've been able to kind of work around it is like, all right, they don't believe that like what they don't believe me when I say that we should run more branded stuff, more focused stuff, then what I need to do is I need to go back and show them that artwork can also perform incredibly well as long as you do it incredibly well. So yeah, tag stuff. Just tag it.

**Lee Joselowitz:** I'd love to add to that whole spiel. I could not agree more and I can also emphasize that some of our best performing ads across our client roster in 2025 were all trend-based. We're all like what is trending on organic and how can we make a a good ad out of that or maybe it's even just the the exact organic post is a good ad in itself. To your point. So I think that that's that's such a huge and valuable point.

**Mirella Crespi:** Yeah, absolutely. Like when we put together concepts and we're presenting to a brand, like here's the research that came from understanding your audience and your competitors, like there is the like what's going on in organic fuse slides where it's just like searching those topics and keywords and just like what are people naturally creating content around because you want to make sure it makes sense and like Lee like you said, there's so much that you can borrow from that in terms of like ideas for hooks for creatives and so on. Um, we have this like massive what we call video techniques database that all it is is like a DM chat with my entire team that every time we see organic content that uses a transition in a cool way, a sound in an interesting way, a new effect, a new this, we like save it and it has this like massive notion um references. So when our creative strategy team is building storyboards, we're literally grabbing the gifts from this techniques database because then it's just like you when you are scripting ads in this mindset of like, okay, I need to write like a strong hook and then I need to agitate the problem and then introduce the product and then add social proof, you can get so stuck in just like like only these visuals, but then if you like sprinkle on top like these techniques from organic, it definitely helps.

**Evan Lee:** So this really gets me thinking about like how to, speaking about systems. So it's one thing building the system and it's another thing like staffing it and like who does the work here. And something that I'm always curious about and I probably have a follow up after as my mind's working, is like is the creative strategist and how I've kind of been seeing the world scope expanding where it starts to think about what does organic first content look like. Because the main question that I am curious about and and Sarah I'll throw it to you first, are these the same skill sets? Like making direct response ads and making things that will do well on organic? Are those the same skill sets in your opinion? Yes or no?

**Sarah Levinger:** Ooh, that's a really good question. Not prepared for this one. Okay. Are they the same skill set? Um, I think on the production side, I'd say yes, 'cause like I said, they're both content. It's just content. If you can make good content, you can get attention and if you can make, you know, good ads, you can get attention. The only difference I would say is aligning with somebody's need to purchase something, that's a different skill set than just creating good content. So in that respect, like content can get you the eyeballs you need and the people that are probably well aligned to your products. Getting them to make an actual like purchase, pushing behavior, that's a different skill set that I think that a lot of people, especially if you're, you know, a direct response marketer, that's where your skill set comes in. The sell though, I will say, which is really interesting, you can get good at content, get good at direct response marketing. The sell is different than it used to be. Like especially in 2025, 2026, it's not nearly as blatant as we saw when UGC started to come up. Like as soon as UGC came into the ecosystem, it was like AIDA, man, every single one of these and they just printed. It was like, holy cow, this is amazing. Now all of a sudden, you can use AIDA and people just scroll right past it as soon as they hear you transition to the next piece of it. So, to Mirella's point, you got to get good at kind of a subtle sell this year. It's all about that like subtlety. Yeah.

**Lee Joselowitz:** I agree with that 100%. It's about it's like believable. I think an ad has to be And I know I talk about trust so much, but I I kind of feel like um trust optimization for me is sort of like the new conversion optimization. Like stop thinking so much about the CTA and the like this is the formula. No, like think think about like how are you building trust with your audience? How are you making something believable? How are you sharing a story? I think that that's like the thinking that needs to kind of change now to be successful. And I think a really strong creative strategist, I agree with all of Sarah's points. I'll also say that I think collaboration is one of the key skills. I don't think that a creative strategist needs or or even is humanly able or possible to do all the things that is expected of a creative strategist today and moving forward. I think that person has to get really good at knowing what they're good at, what they're not good at, who they need to work with, who they need to collaborate with, who they need to bring in to to get the ultimate desired results.

**Mirella Crespi:** Yeah, and if you don't invest in that, you are fighting the hardest fight because it's always just going to be a race to the bottom and it's just going to be about like pricing and offers and discounts and like, you know, you're always trying to go with the DR scarcity, urgency approach to try and sell your product when in reality, if you take a step back and you're like brands that actually have a brand, they can charge like a lot more and they don't have to like work so hard to try and get that sale. Um, I think you you have to do both, right? You have to have a strong direct response strategy to win on paid social, but having um the brand that builds trust and the storytelling and all that will only make your life easier.

**Sarah Levinger:** Yep. 100%. I agree. No notes. I mean the the only thing I will add to like both of these lovely ladies, you guys are so smart. Um, one of the things that I will add is if anybody is metric focused, especially at like the top of the brand, the only thing that you can do is like we talked about before, tag stuff. Just tag everything you've got and show them we've actually got numbers behind this art that we've created. That's about the only way that I've been able to kind of work around it is like, all right, they don't believe that like what they don't believe me when I say that we should run more branded stuff, more focused stuff, then what I need to do is I need to go back and show them that artwork can also perform incredibly well as long as you do it incredibly well. So yeah, tag stuff. Just tag it.

**Lee Joselowitz:** I'd love to add to that whole spiel. I could not agree more and I can also emphasize that some of our best performing ads across our client roster in 2025 were all trend-based. We're all like what is trending on organic and how can we make a a good ad out of that or maybe it's even just the the exact organic post is a good ad in itself. To your point. So I think that that's that's such a huge and valuable point.

**Mirella Crespi:** Yeah, absolutely. Like when we put together concepts and we're presenting to a brand, like here's the research that came from understanding your audience and your competitors, like there is the like what's going on in organic fuse slides where it's just like searching those topics and keywords and just like what are people naturally creating content around because you want to make sure it makes sense and like Lee like you said, there's so much that you can borrow from that in terms of like ideas for hooks for creatives and so on. Um, we have this like massive what we call video techniques database that all it is is like a DM chat with my entire team that every time we see organic content that uses a transition in a cool way, a sound in an interesting way, a new effect, a new this, we like save it and it has this like massive notion um references. So when our creative strategy team is building storyboards, we're literally grabbing the gifts from this techniques database because then it's just like you when you are scripting ads in this mindset of like, okay, I need to write like a strong hook and then I need to agitate the problem and then introduce the product and then add social proof, you can get so stuck in just like like only these visuals, but then if you like sprinkle on top like these techniques from organic, it definitely helps.

**Evan Lee:** So this really gets me thinking about like how to, speaking about systems. So it's one thing building the system and it's another thing like staffing it and like who does the work here. And something that I'm always curious about and I probably have a follow up after as my mind's working, is like is the creative strategist and how I've kind of been seeing the world scope expanding where it starts to think about what does organic first content look like. Because the main question that I am curious about and and Sarah I'll throw it to you first, are these the same skill sets? Like making direct response ads and making things that will do well on organic? Are those the same skill sets in your opinion? Yes or no?

**Sarah Levinger:** Ooh, that's a really good question. Not prepared for this one. Okay. Are they the same skill set? Um, I think on the production side, I'd say yes, 'cause like I said, they're both content. It's just content. If you can make good content, you can get attention and if you can make, you know, good ads, you can get attention. The only difference I would say is aligning with somebody's need to purchase something, that's a different skill set than just creating good content. So in that respect, like content can get you the eyeballs you need and the people that are probably well aligned to your products. Getting them to make an actual like purchase, pushing behavior, that's a different skill set that I think that a lot of people, especially if you're, you know, a direct response marketer, that's where your skill set comes in. The sell though, I will say, which is really interesting, you can get good at content, get good at direct response marketing. The sell is different than it used to be. Like especially in 2025, 2026, it's not nearly as blatant as we saw when UGC started to come up. Like as soon as UGC came into the ecosystem, it was like AIDA, man, every single one of these and they just printed. It was like, holy cow, this is amazing. Now all of a sudden, you can use AIDA and people just scroll right past it as soon as they hear you transition to the next piece of it. So, to Mirella's point, you got to get good at kind of a subtle sell this year. It's all about that like subtlety. Yeah.

**Lee Joselowitz:** I agree with that 100%. It's about it's like believable. I think an ad has to be And I know I talk about trust so much, but I I kind of feel like um trust optimization for me is sort of like the new conversion optimization. Like stop thinking so much about the CTA and the like this is the formula. No, like think think about like how are you building trust with your audience? How are you making something believable? How are you sharing a story? I think that that's like the thinking that needs to kind of change now to be successful. And I think a really strong creative strategist, I agree with all of Sarah's points. I'll also say that I think collaboration is one of the key skills. I don't think that a creative strategist needs or or even is humanly able or possible to do all the things that is expected of a creative strategist today and moving forward. I think that person has to get really good at knowing what they're good at, what they're not good at, who they need to work with, who they need to collaborate with, who they need to bring in to to get the ultimate desired results.

**Mirella Crespi:** Yeah, and if you don't invest in that, you are fighting the hardest fight because it's always just going to be a race to the bottom and it's just going to be about like pricing and offers and discounts and like, you know, you're always trying to go with the DR scarcity, urgency approach to try and sell your product when in reality, if you take a step back and you're like brands that actually have a brand, they can charge like a lot more and they don't have to like work so hard to try and get that sale. Um, I think you you have to do both, right? You have to have a strong direct response strategy to win on paid social, but having um the brand that builds trust and the storytelling and all that will only make your life easier.

**Sarah Levinger:** Yep. 100%. I agree. No notes. I mean the the only thing I will add to like both of these lovely ladies, you guys are so smart. Um, one of the things that I will add is if anybody is metric focused, especially at like the top of the brand, the only thing that you can do is like we talked about before, tag stuff. Just tag everything you've got and show them we've actually got numbers behind this art that we've created. That's about the only way that I've been able to kind of work around it is like, all right, they don't believe that like what they don't believe me when I say that we should run more branded stuff, more focused stuff, then what I need to do is I need to go back and show them that artwork can also perform incredibly well as long as you do it incredibly well. So yeah, tag stuff. Just tag it.

**Lee Joselowitz:** I'd love to add to that whole spiel. I could not agree more and I can also emphasize that some of our best performing ads across our client roster in 2025 were all trend-based. We're all like what is trending on organic and how can we make a a good ad out of that or maybe it's even just the the exact organic post is a good ad in itself. To your point. So I think that that's that's such a huge and valuable point.

**Mirella Crespi:** Yeah, absolutely. Like when we put together concepts and we're presenting to a brand, like here's the research that came from understanding your audience and your competitors, like there is the like what's going on in organic fuse slides where it's just like searching those topics and keywords and just like what are people naturally creating content around because you want to make sure it makes sense and like Lee like you said, there's so much that you can borrow from that in terms of like ideas for hooks for creatives and so on. Um, we have this like massive what we call video techniques database that all it is is like a DM chat with my entire team that every time we see organic content that uses a transition in a cool way, a sound in an interesting way, a new effect, a new this, we like save it and it has this like massive notion um references. So when our creative strategy team is building storyboards, we're literally grabbing the gifts from this techniques database because then it's just like you when you are scripting ads in this mindset of like, okay, I need to write like a strong hook and then I need to agitate the problem and then introduce the product and then add social proof, you can get so stuck in just like like only these visuals, but then if you like sprinkle on top like these techniques from organic, it definitely helps.

**Evan Lee:** So this really gets me thinking about like how to, speaking about systems. So it's one thing building the system and it's another thing like staffing it and like who does the work here. And something that I'm always curious about and I probably have a follow up after as my mind's working, is like is the creative strategist and how I've kind of been seeing the world scope expanding where it starts to think about what does organic first content look like. Because the main question that I am curious about and and Sarah I'll throw it to you first, are these the same skill sets? Like making direct response ads and making things that will do well on organic? Are those the same skill sets in your opinion? Yes or no?

**Sarah Levinger:** Ooh, that's a really good question. Not prepared for this one. Okay. Are they the same skill set? Um, I think on the production side, I'd say yes, 'cause like I said, they're both content. It's just content. If you can make good content, you can get attention and if you can make, you know, good ads, you can get attention. The only difference I would say is aligning with somebody's need to purchase something, that's a different skill set than just creating good content. So in that respect, like content can get you the eyeballs you need and the people that are probably well aligned to your products. Getting them to make an actual like purchase, pushing behavior, that's a different skill set that I think that a lot of people, especially if you're, you know, a direct response marketer, that's where your skill set comes in. The sell though, I will say, which is really interesting, you can get good at content, get good at direct response marketing. The sell is different than it used to be. Like especially in 2025, 2026, it's not nearly as blatant as we saw when UGC started to come up. Like as soon as UGC came into the ecosystem, it was like AIDA, man, every single one of these and they just printed. It was like, holy cow, this is amazing. Now all of a sudden, you can use AIDA and people just scroll right past it as soon as they hear you transition to the next piece of it. So, to Mirella's point, you got to get good at kind of a subtle sell this year. It's all about that like subtlety. Yeah.

**Lee Joselowitz:** I agree with that 100%. It's about it's like believable. I think an ad has to be And I know I talk about trust so much, but I I kind of feel like um trust optimization for me is sort of like the new conversion optimization. Like stop thinking so much about the CTA and the like this is the formula. No, like think think about like how are you building trust with your audience? How are you making something believable? How are you sharing a story? I think that that's like the thinking that needs to kind of change now to be successful. And I think a really strong creative strategist, I agree with all of Sarah's points. I'll also say that I think collaboration is one of the key skills. I don't think that a creative strategist needs or or even is humanly able or possible to do all the things that is expected of a creative strategist today and moving forward. I think that person has to get really good at knowing what they're good at, what they're not good at, who they need to work with, who they need to collaborate with, who they need to bring in to to get the ultimate desired results.

**Mirella Crespi:** Yeah, and if you don't invest in that, you are fighting the hardest fight because it's always just going to be a race to the bottom and it's just going to be about like pricing and offers and discounts and like, you know, you're always trying to go with the DR scarcity, urgency approach to try and sell your product when in reality, if you take a step back and you're like brands that actually have a brand, they can charge like a lot more and they don't have to like work so hard to try and get that sale. Um, I think you you have to do both, right? You have to have a strong direct response strategy to win on paid social, but having um the brand that builds trust and the storytelling and all that will only make your life easier.

**Sarah Levinger:** Yep. 100%. I agree. No notes. I mean the the only thing I will add to like both of these lovely ladies, you guys are so smart. Um, one of the things that I will add is if anybody is metric focused, especially at like the top of the brand, the only thing that you can do is like we talked about before, tag stuff. Just tag everything you've got and show them we've actually got numbers behind this art that we've created. That's about the only way that I've been able to kind of work around it is like, all right, they don't believe that like what they don't believe me when I say that we should run more branded stuff, more focused stuff, then what I need to do is I need to go back and show them that artwork can also perform incredibly well as long as you do it incredibly well. So yeah, tag stuff. Just tag it.

**Lee Joselowitz:** I'd love to add to that whole spiel. I could not agree more and I can also emphasize that some of our best performing ads across our client roster in 2025 were all trend-based. We're all like what is trending on organic and how can we make a a good ad out of that or maybe it's even just the the exact organic post is a good ad in itself. To your point. So I think that that's that's such a huge and valuable point.

**Mirella Crespi:** Yeah, absolutely. Like when we put together concepts and we're presenting to a brand, like here's the research that came from understanding your audience and your competitors, like there is the like what's going on in organic fuse slides where it's just like searching those topics and keywords and just like what are people naturally creating content around because you want to make sure it makes sense and like Lee like you said, there's so much that you can borrow from that in terms of like ideas for hooks for creatives and so on. Um, we have this like massive what we call video techniques database that all it is is like a DM chat with my entire team that every time we see organic content that uses a transition in a cool way, a sound in an interesting way, a new effect, a new this, we like save it and it has this like massive notion um references. So when our creative strategy team is building storyboards, we're literally grabbing the gifts from this techniques database because then it's just like you when you are scripting ads in this mindset of like, okay, I need to write like a strong hook and then I need to agitate the problem and then introduce the product and then add social proof, you can get so stuck in just like like only these visuals, but then if you like sprinkle on top like these techniques from organic, it definitely helps.

**Evan Lee:** So this really gets me thinking about like how to, speaking about systems. So it's one thing building the system and it's another thing like staffing it and like who does the work here. And something that I'm always curious about and I probably have a follow up after as my mind's working, is like is the creative strategist and how I've kind of been seeing the world scope expanding where it starts to think about what does organic first content look like. Because the main question that I am curious about and and Sarah I'll throw it to you first, are these the same skill sets? Like making direct response ads and making things that will do well on organic? Are those the same skill sets in your opinion? Yes or no?

**Sarah Levinger:** Ooh, that's a really good question. Not prepared for this one. Okay. Are they the same skill set? Um, I think on the production side, I'd say yes, 'cause like I said, they're both content. It's just content. If you can make good content, you can get attention and if you can make, you know, good ads, you can get attention. The only difference I would say is aligning with somebody's need to purchase something, that's a different skill set than just creating good content. So in that respect, like content can get you the eyeballs you need and the people that are probably well aligned to your products. Getting them to make an actual like purchase, pushing behavior, that's a different skill set that I think that a lot of people, especially if you're, you know, a direct response marketer, that's where your skill set comes in. The sell though, I will say, which is really interesting, you can get good at content, get good at direct response marketing. The sell is different than it used to be. Like especially in 2025, 2026, it's not nearly as blatant as we saw when UGC started to come up. Like as soon as UGC came into the ecosystem, it was like AIDA, man, every single one of these and they just printed. It was like, holy cow, this is amazing. Now all of a sudden, you can use AIDA and people just scroll right past it as soon as they hear you transition to the next piece of it. So, to Mirella's point, you got to get good at kind of a subtle sell this year. It's all about that like subtlety. Yeah.

**Lee Joselowitz:** I agree with that 100%. It's about it's like believable. I think an ad has to be And I know I talk about trust so much, but I I kind of feel like um trust optimization for me is sort of like the new conversion optimization. Like stop thinking so much about the CTA and the like this is the formula. No, like think think about like how are you building trust with your audience? How are you making something believable? How are you sharing a story? I think that that's like the thinking that needs to kind of change now to be successful. And I think a really strong creative strategist, I agree with all of Sarah's points. I'll also say that I think collaboration is one of the key skills. I don't think that a creative strategist needs or or even is humanly able or possible to do all the things that is expected of a creative strategist today and moving forward. I think that person has to get really good at knowing what they're good at, what they're not good at, who they need to work with, who they need to collaborate with, who they need to bring in to to get the ultimate desired results.

**Mirella Crespi:** Yeah, and if you don't invest in that, you are fighting the hardest fight because it's always just going to be a race to the bottom and it's just going to be about like pricing and offers and discounts and like, you know, you're always trying to go with the DR scarcity, urgency approach to try and sell your product when in reality, if you take a step back and you're like brands that actually have a brand, they can charge like a lot more and they don't have to like work so hard to try and get that sale. Um, I think you you have to do both, right? You have to have a strong direct response strategy to win on paid social, but having um the brand that builds trust and the storytelling and all that will only make your life easier.

**Sarah Levinger:** Yep. 100%. I agree. No notes. I mean the the only thing I will add to like both of these lovely ladies, you guys are so smart. Um, one of the things that I will add is if anybody is metric focused, especially at like the top of the brand, the only thing that you can do is like we talked about before, tag stuff. Just tag everything you've got and show them we've actually got numbers behind this art that we've created. That's about the only way that I've been able to kind of work around it is like, all right, they don't believe that like what they don't believe me when I say that we should run more branded stuff, more focused stuff, then what I need to do is I need to go back and show them that artwork can also perform incredibly well as long as you do it incredibly well. So yeah, tag stuff. Just tag it.

**Lee Joselowitz:** I'd love to add to that whole spiel. I could not agree more and I can also emphasize that some of our best performing ads across our client roster in 2025 were all trend-based. We're all like what is trending on organic and how can we make a a good ad out of that or maybe it's even just the the exact organic post is a good ad in itself. To your point. So I think that that's that's such a huge and valuable point.

**Mirella Crespi:** Yeah, absolutely. Like when we put together concepts and we're presenting to a brand, like here's the research that came from understanding your audience and your competitors, like there is the like what's going on in organic fuse slides where it's just like searching those topics and keywords and just like what are people naturally creating content around because you want to make sure it makes sense and like Lee like you said, there's so much that you can borrow from that in terms of like ideas for hooks for creatives and so on. Um, we have this like massive what we call video techniques database that all it is is like a DM chat with my entire team that every time we see organic content that uses a transition in a cool way, a sound in an interesting way, a new effect, a new this, we like save it and it has this like massive notion um references. So when our creative strategy team is building storyboards, we're literally grabbing the gifts from this techniques database because then it's just like you when you are scripting ads in this mindset of like, okay, I need to write like a strong hook and then I need to agitate the problem and then introduce the product and then add social proof, you can get so stuck in just like like only these visuals, but then if you like sprinkle on top like these techniques from organic, it definitely helps.

**Evan Lee:** So this really gets me thinking about like how to, speaking about systems. So it's one thing building the system and it's another thing like staffing it and like who does the work here. And something that I'm always curious about and I probably have a follow up after as my mind's working, is like is the creative strategist and how I've kind of been seeing the world scope expanding where it starts to think about what does organic first content look like. Because the main question that I am curious about and and Sarah I'll throw it to you first, are these the same skill sets? Like making direct response ads and making things that will do well on organic? Are those the same skill sets in your opinion? Yes or no?

**Sarah Levinger:** Ooh, that's a really good question. Not prepared for this one. Okay. Are they the same skill set? Um, I think on the production side, I'd say yes, 'cause like I said, they're both content. It's just content. If you can make good content, you can get attention and if you can make, you know, good ads, you can get attention. The only difference I would say is aligning with somebody's need to purchase something, that's a different skill set than just creating good content. So in that respect, like content can get you the eyeballs you need and the people that are probably well aligned to your products. Getting them to make an actual like purchase, pushing behavior, that's a different skill set that I think that a lot of people, especially if you're, you know, a direct response marketer, that's where your skill set comes in. The sell though, I will say, which is really interesting, you can get good at content, get good at direct response marketing. The sell is different than it used to be. Like especially in 2025, 2026, it's not nearly as blatant as we saw when UGC started to come up. Like as soon as UGC came into the ecosystem, it was like AIDA, man, every single one of these and they just printed. It was like, holy cow, this is amazing. Now all of a sudden, you can use AIDA and people just scroll right past it as soon as they hear you transition to the next piece of it. So, to Mirella's point, you got to get good at kind of a subtle sell this year. It's all about that like subtlety. Yeah.

**Lee Joselowitz:** I agree with that 100%. It's about it's like believable. I think an ad has to be And I know I talk about trust so much, but I I kind of feel like um trust optimization for me is sort of like the new conversion optimization. Like stop thinking so much about the CTA and the like this is the formula. No, like think think about like how are you building trust with your audience? How are you making something believable? How are you sharing a story? I think that that's like the thinking that needs to kind of change now to be successful. And I think a really strong creative strategist, I agree with all of Sarah's points. I'll also say that I think collaboration is one of the key skills. I don't think that a creative strategist needs or or even is humanly able or possible to do all the things that is expected of a creative strategist today and moving forward. I think that person has to get really good at knowing what they're good at, what they're not good at, who they need to work with, who they need to collaborate with, who they need to bring in to to get the ultimate desired results.

**Mirella Crespi:** Yeah, and if you don't invest in that, you are fighting the hardest fight because it's always just going to be a race to the bottom and it's just going to be about like pricing and offers and discounts and like, you know, you're always trying to go with the DR scarcity, urgency approach to try and sell your product when in reality, if you take a step back and you're like brands that actually have a brand, they can charge like a lot more and they don't have to like work so hard to try and get that sale. Um, I think you you have to do both, right? You have to have a strong direct response strategy to win on paid social, but having um the brand that builds trust and the storytelling and all that will only make your life easier.

**Sarah Levinger:** Yep. 100%. I agree. No notes. I mean the the only thing I will add to like both of these lovely ladies, you guys are so smart. Um, one of the things that I will add is if anybody is metric focused, especially at like the top of the brand, the only thing that you can do is like we talked about before, tag stuff. Just tag everything you've got and show them we've actually got numbers behind this art that we've created. That's about the only way that I've been able to kind of work around it is like, all right, they don't believe that like what they don't believe me when I say that we should run more branded stuff, more focused stuff, then what I need to do is I need to go back and show them that artwork can also perform incredibly well as long as you do it incredibly well. So yeah, tag stuff. Just tag it.

**Lee Joselowitz:** I'd love to add to that whole spiel. I could not agree more and I can also emphasize that some of our best performing ads across our client roster in 2025 were all trend-based. We're all like what is trending on organic and how can we make a a good ad out of that or maybe it's even just the the exact organic post is a good ad in itself. To your point. So I think that that's that's such a huge and valuable point.

**Mirella Crespi:** Yeah, absolutely. Like when we put together concepts and we're presenting to a brand, like here's the research that came from understanding your audience and your competitors, like there is the like what's going on in organic fuse slides where it's just like searching those topics and keywords and just like what are people naturally creating content around because you want to make sure it makes sense and like Lee like you said, there's so much that you can borrow from that in terms of like ideas for hooks for creatives and so on. Um, we have this like massive what we call video techniques database that all it is is like a DM chat with my entire team that every time we see organic content that uses a transition in a cool way, a sound in an interesting way, a new effect, a new this, we like save it and it has this like massive notion um references. So when our creative strategy team is building storyboards, we're literally grabbing the gifts from this techniques database because then it's just like you when you are scripting ads in this mindset of like, okay, I need to write like a strong hook and then I need to agitate the problem and then introduce the product and then add social proof, you can get so stuck in just like like only these visuals, but then if you like sprinkle on top like these techniques from organic, it definitely helps.

**Evan Lee:** So this really gets me thinking about like how to, speaking about systems. So it's one thing building the system and it's another thing like staffing it and like who does the work here. And something that I'm always curious about and I probably have a follow up after as my mind's working, is like is the creative strategist and how I've kind of been seeing the world scope expanding where it starts to think about what does organic first content look like. Because the main question that I am curious about and and Sarah I'll throw it to you first, are these the same skill sets? Like making direct response ads and making things that will do well on organic? Are those the same skill sets in your opinion? Yes or no?

**Sarah Levinger:** Ooh, that's a really good question. Not prepared for this one. Okay. Are they the same skill set? Um, I think on the production side, I'd say yes, 'cause like I said, they're both content. It's just content. If you can make good content, you can get attention and if you can make, you know, good ads, you can get attention. The only difference I would say is aligning with somebody's need to purchase something, that's a different skill set than just creating good content. So in that respect, like content can get you the eyeballs you need and the people that are probably well aligned to your products. Getting them to make an actual like purchase, pushing behavior, that's a different skill set that I think that a lot of people, especially if you're, you know, a direct response marketer, that's where your skill set comes in. The sell though, I will say, which is really interesting, you can get good at content, get good at direct response marketing. The sell is different than it used to be. Like especially in 2025, 2026, it's not nearly as blatant as we saw when UGC started to come up. Like as soon as UGC came into the ecosystem, it was like AIDA, man, every single one of these and they just printed. It was like, holy cow, this is amazing. Now all of a sudden, you can use AIDA and people just scroll right past it as soon as they hear you transition to the next piece of it. So, to Mirella's point, you got to get good at kind of a subtle sell this year. It's all about that like subtlety. Yeah.

**Lee Joselowitz:** I agree with that 100%. It's about it's like believable. I think an ad has to be And I know I talk about trust so much, but I I kind of feel like um trust optimization for me is sort of like the new conversion optimization. Like stop thinking so much about the CTA and the like this is the formula. No, like think think about like how are you building trust with your audience? How are you making something believable? How are you sharing a story? I think that that's like the thinking that needs to kind of change now to be successful. And I think a really strong creative strategist, I agree with all of Sarah's points. I'll also say that I think collaboration is one of the key skills. I don't think that a creative strategist needs or or even is humanly able or possible to do all the things that is expected of a creative strategist today and moving forward. I think that person has to get really good at knowing what they're good at, what they're not good at, who they need to work with, who they need to collaborate with, who they need to bring in to to get the ultimate desired results.

**Mirella Crespi:** Yeah, and if you don't invest in that, you are fighting the hardest fight because it's always just going to be a race to the bottom and it's just going to be about like pricing and offers and discounts and like, you know, you're always trying to go with the DR scarcity, urgency approach to try and sell your product when in reality, if you take a step back and you're like brands that actually have a brand, they can charge like a lot more and they don't have to like work so hard to try and get that sale. Um, I think you you have to do both, right? You have to have a strong direct response strategy to win on paid social, but having um the brand that builds trust and the storytelling and all that will only make your life easier.

**Sarah Levinger:** Yep. 100%. I agree. No notes. I mean the the only thing I will add to like both of these lovely ladies, you guys are so smart. Um, one of the things that I will add is if anybody is metric focused, especially at like the top of the brand, the only thing that you can do is like we talked about before, tag stuff. Just tag everything you've got and show them we've actually got numbers behind this art that we've created. That's about the only way that I've been able to kind of work around it is like, all right, they don't believe that like what they don't believe me when I say that we should run more branded stuff, more focused stuff, then what I need to do is I need to go back and show them that artwork can also perform incredibly well as long as you do it incredibly well. So yeah, tag stuff. Just tag it.

**Lee Joselowitz:** I'd love to add to that whole spiel. I could not agree more and I can also emphasize that some of our best performing ads across our client roster in 2025 were all trend-based. We're all like what is trending on organic and how can we make a a good ad out of that or maybe it's even just the the exact organic post is a good ad in itself. To your point. So I think that that's that's such a huge and valuable point.

**Mirella Crespi:** Yeah, absolutely. Like when we put together concepts and we're presenting to a brand, like here's the research that came from understanding your audience and your competitors, like there is the like what's going on in organic fuse slides where it's just like searching those topics and keywords and just like what are people naturally creating content around because you want to make sure it makes sense and like Lee like you said, there's so much that you can borrow from that in terms of like ideas for hooks for creatives and so on. Um, we have this like massive what we call video techniques database that all it is is like a DM chat with my entire team that every time we see organic content that uses a transition in a cool way, a sound in an interesting way, a new effect, a new this, we like save it and it has this like massive notion um references. So when our creative strategy team is building storyboards, we're literally grabbing the gifts from this techniques database because then it's just like you when you are scripting ads in this mindset of like, okay, I need to write like a strong hook and then I need to agitate the problem and then introduce the product and then add social proof, you can get so stuck in just like like only these visuals, but then if you like sprinkle on top like these techniques from organic, it definitely helps.

**Evan Lee:** So this really gets me thinking about like how to, speaking about systems. So it's one thing building the system and it's another thing like staffing it and like who does the work here. And something that I'm always curious about and I probably have a follow up after as my mind's working, is like is the creative strategist and how I've kind of been seeing the world scope expanding where it starts to think about what does organic first content look like. Because the main question that I am curious about and and Sarah I'll throw it to you first, are these the same skill sets? Like making direct response ads and making things that will do well on organic? Are those the same skill sets in your opinion? Yes or no?

**Sarah Levinger:** Ooh, that's a really good question. Not prepared for this one. Okay. Are they the same skill set? Um, I think on the production side, I'd say yes, 'cause like I said, they're both content. It's just content. If you can make good content, you can get attention and if you can make, you know, good ads, you can get attention. The only difference I would say is aligning with somebody's need to purchase something, that's a different skill set than just creating good content. So in that respect, like content can get you the eyeballs you need and the people that are probably well aligned to your products. Getting them to make an actual like purchase, pushing behavior, that's a different skill set that I think that a lot of people, especially if you're, you know, a direct response marketer, that's where your skill set comes in. The sell though, I will say, which is really interesting, you can get good at content, get good at direct response marketing. The sell is different than it used to be. Like especially in 2025, 2026, it's not nearly as blatant as we saw when UGC started to come up. Like as soon as UGC came into the ecosystem, it was like AIDA, man, every single one of these and they just printed. It was like, holy cow, this is amazing. Now all of a sudden, you can use AIDA and people just scroll right past it as soon as they hear you transition to the next piece of it. So, to Mirella's point, you got to get good at kind of a subtle sell this year. It's all about that like subtlety. Yeah.

**Lee Joselowitz:** I agree with that 100%. It's about it's like believable. I think an ad has to be And I know I talk about trust so much, but I I kind of feel like um trust optimization for me is sort of like the new conversion optimization. Like stop thinking so much about the CTA and the like this is the formula. No, like think think about like how are you building trust with your audience? How are you making something believable? How are you sharing a story? I think that that's like the thinking that needs to kind of change now to be successful. And I think a really strong creative strategist, I agree with all of Sarah's points. I'll also say that I think collaboration is one of the key skills. I don't think that a creative strategist needs or or even is humanly able or possible to do all the things that is expected of a creative strategist today and moving forward. I think that person has to get really good at knowing what they're good at, what they're not good at, who they need to work with, who they need to collaborate with, who they need to bring in to to get the ultimate desired results.

**Mirella Crespi:** Yeah, and if you don't invest in that, you are fighting the hardest fight because it's always just going to be a race to the bottom and it's just going to be about like pricing and offers and discounts and like, you know, you're always trying to go with the DR scarcity, urgency approach to try and sell your product when in reality, if you take a step back and you're like brands that actually have a brand, they can charge like a lot more and they don't have to like work so hard to try and get that sale. Um, I think you you have to do both, right? You have to have a strong direct response strategy to win on paid social, but having um the brand that builds trust and the storytelling and all that will only make your life easier.

**Sarah Levinger:** Yep. 100%. I agree. No notes. I mean the the only thing I will add to like both of these lovely ladies, you guys are so smart. Um, one of the things that I will add is if anybody is metric focused, especially at like the top of the brand, the only thing that you can do is like we talked about before, tag stuff. Just tag everything you've got and show them we've actually got numbers behind this art that we've created. That's about the only way that I've been able to kind of work around it is like, all right, they don't believe that like what they don't believe me when I say that we should run more branded stuff, more focused stuff, then what I need to do is I need to go back and show them that artwork can also perform incredibly well as long as you do it incredibly well. So yeah, tag stuff. Just tag it.

**Lee Joselowitz:** I'd love to add to that whole spiel. I could not agree more and I can also emphasize that some of our best performing ads across our client roster in 2025 were all trend-based. We're all like what is trending on organic and how can we make a a good ad out of that or maybe it's even just the the exact organic post is a good ad in itself. To your point. So I think that that's that's such a huge and valuable point.

**Mirella Crespi:** Yeah, absolutely. Like when we put together concepts and we're presenting to a brand, like here's the research that came from understanding your audience and your competitors, like there is the like what's going on in organic fuse slides where it's just like searching those topics and keywords and just like what are people naturally creating content around because you want to make sure it makes sense and like Lee like you said, there's so much that you can borrow from that in terms of like ideas for hooks for creatives and so on. Um, we have this like massive what we call video techniques database that all it is is like a DM chat with my entire team that every time we see organic content that uses a transition in a cool way, a sound in an interesting way, a new effect, a new this, we like save it and it has this like massive notion um references. So when our creative strategy team is building storyboards, we're literally grabbing the gifts from this techniques database because then it's just like you when you are scripting ads in this mindset of like, okay, I need to write like a strong hook and then I need to agitate the problem and then introduce the product and then add social proof, you can get so stuck in just like like only these visuals, but then if you like sprinkle on top like these techniques from organic, it definitely helps.

**Evan Lee:** So this really gets me thinking about like how to, speaking about systems. So it's one thing building the system and it's another thing like staffing it and like who does the work here. And something that I'm always curious about and I probably have a follow up after as my mind's working, is like is the creative strategist and how I've kind of been seeing the world scope expanding where it starts to think about what does organic first content look like. Because the main question that I am curious about and and Sarah I'll throw it to you first, are these the same skill sets? Like making direct response ads and making things that will do well on organic? Are those the same skill sets in your opinion? Yes or no?

**Sarah Levinger:** Ooh, that's a really good question. Not prepared for this one. Okay. Are they the same skill set? Um, I think on the production side, I'd say yes, 'cause like I said, they're both content. It's just content. If you can make good content, you can get attention and if you can make, you know, good ads, you can get attention. The only difference I would say is aligning with somebody's need to purchase something, that's a different skill set than just creating good content. So in that respect, like content can get you the eyeballs you need and the people that are probably well aligned to your products. Getting them to make an actual like purchase, pushing behavior, that's a different skill set that I think that a lot of people, especially if you're, you know, a direct response marketer, that's where your skill set comes in. The sell though, I will say, which is really interesting, you can get good at content, get good at direct response marketing. The sell is different than it used to be. Like especially in 2025, 2026, it's not nearly as blatant as we saw when UGC started to come up. Like as soon as UGC came into the ecosystem, it was like AIDA, man, every single one of these and they just printed. It was like, holy cow, this is amazing. Now all of a sudden, you can use AIDA and people just scroll right past it as soon as they hear you transition to the next piece of it. So, to Mirella's point, you got to get good at kind of a subtle sell this year. It's all about that like subtlety. Yeah.

**Lee Joselowitz:** I agree with that 100%. It's about it's like believable. I think an ad has to be And I know I talk about trust so much, but I I kind of feel like um trust optimization for me is sort of like the new conversion optimization. Like stop thinking so much about the CTA and the like this is the formula. No, like think think about like how are you building trust with your audience? How are you making something believable? How are you sharing a story? I think that that's like the thinking that needs to kind of change now to be successful. And I think a really strong creative strategist, I agree with all of Sarah's points. I'll also say that I think collaboration is one of the key skills. I don't think that a creative strategist needs or or even is humanly able or possible to do all the things that is expected of a creative strategist today and moving forward. I think that person has to get really good at knowing what they're good at, what they're not good at, who they need to work with, who they need to collaborate with, who they need to bring in to to get the ultimate desired results.

**Mirella Crespi:** Yeah, and if you don't invest in that, you are fighting the hardest fight because it's always just going to be a race to the bottom and it's just going to be about like pricing and offers and discounts and like, you know, you're always trying to go with the DR scarcity, urgency approach to try and sell your product when in reality, if you take a step back and you're like brands that actually have a brand, they can charge like a lot more and they don't have to like work so hard to try and get that sale. Um, I think you you have to do both, right? You have to have a strong direct response strategy to win on paid social, but having um the brand that builds trust and the storytelling and all that will only make your life easier.

**Sarah Levinger:** Yep. 100%. I agree. No notes. I mean the the only thing I will add to like both of these lovely ladies, you guys are so smart. Um, one of the things that I will add is if anybody is metric focused, especially at like the top of the brand, the only thing that you can do is like we talked about before, tag stuff. Just tag everything you've got and show them we've actually got numbers behind this art that we've created. That's about the only way that I've been able to kind of work around it is like, all right, they don't believe that like what they don't believe me when I say that we should run more branded stuff, more focused stuff, then what I need to do is I need to go back and show them that artwork can also perform incredibly well as long as you do it incredibly well. So yeah, tag stuff. Just tag it.

**Lee Joselowitz:** I'd love to add to that whole spiel. I could not agree more and I can also emphasize that some of our best performing ads across our client roster in 2025 were all trend-based. We're all like what is trending on organic and how can we make a a good ad out of that or maybe it's even just the the exact organic post is a good ad in itself. To your point. So I think that that's that's such a huge and valuable point.

**Mirella Crespi:** Yeah, absolutely. Like when we put together concepts and we're presenting to a brand, like here's the research that came from understanding your audience and your competitors, like there is the like what's going on in organic fuse slides where it's just like searching those topics and keywords and just like what are people naturally creating content around because you want to make sure it makes sense and like Lee like you said, there's so much that you can borrow from that in terms of like ideas for hooks for creatives and so on. Um, we have this like massive what we call video techniques database that all it is is like a DM chat with my entire team that every time we see organic content that uses a transition in a cool way, a sound in an interesting way, a new effect, a new this, we like save it and it has this like massive notion um references. So when our creative strategy team is building storyboards, we're literally grabbing the gifts from this techniques database because then it's just like you when you are scripting ads in this mindset of like, okay, I need to write like a strong hook and then I need to agitate the problem and then introduce the product and then add social proof, you can get so stuck in just like like only these visuals, but then if you like sprinkle on top like these techniques from organic, it definitely helps.

**Evan Lee:** So this really gets me thinking about like how to, speaking about systems. So it's one thing building the system and it's another thing like staffing it and like who does the work here. And something that I'm always curious about and I probably have a follow up after as my mind's working, is like is the creative strategist and how I've kind of been seeing the world scope expanding where it starts to think about what does organic first content look like. Because the main question that I am curious about and and Sarah I'll throw it to you first, are these the same skill sets? Like making direct response ads and making things that will do well on organic? Are those the same skill sets in your opinion? Yes or no?

**Sarah Levinger:** Ooh, that's a really good question. Not prepared for this one. Okay. Are they the same skill set? Um, I think on the production side, I'd say yes, 'cause like I said, they're both content. It's just content. If you can make good content, you can get attention and if you can make, you know, good ads, you can get attention. The only difference I would say is aligning with somebody's need to purchase something, that's a different skill set than just creating good content. So in that respect, like content can get you the eyeballs you need and the people that are probably well aligned to your products. Getting them to make an actual like purchase, pushing behavior, that's a different skill set that I think that a lot of people, especially if you're, you know, a direct response marketer, that's where your skill set comes in. The sell though, I will say, which is really interesting, you can get good at content, get good at direct response marketing. The sell is different than it used to be. Like especially in 2025, 2026, it's not nearly as blatant as we saw when UGC started to come up. Like as soon as UGC came into the ecosystem, it was like AIDA, man, every single one of these and they just printed. It was like, holy cow, this is amazing. Now all of a sudden, you can use AIDA and people just scroll right past it as soon as they hear you transition to the next piece of it. So, to Mirella's point, you got to get good at kind of a subtle sell this year. It's all about that like subtlety. Yeah.

**Lee Joselowitz:** I agree with that 100%. It's about it's like believable. I think an ad has to be And I know I talk about trust so much, but I I kind of feel like um trust optimization for me is sort of like the new conversion optimization. Like stop thinking so much about the CTA and the like this is the formula. No, like think think about like how are you building trust with your audience? How are you making something believable? How are you sharing a story? I think that that's like the thinking that needs to kind of change now to be successful. And I think a really strong creative strategist, I agree with all of Sarah's points. I'll also say that I think collaboration is one of the key skills. I don't think that a creative strategist needs or or even is humanly able or possible to do all the things that is expected of a creative strategist today and moving forward. I think that person has to get really good at knowing what they're good at, what they're not good at, who they need to work with, who they need to collaborate with, who they need to bring in to to get the ultimate desired results.

**Mirella Crespi:** Yeah, and if you don't invest in that, you are fighting the hardest fight because it's always just going to be a race to the bottom and it's just going to be about like pricing and offers and discounts and like, you know, you're always trying to go with the DR scarcity, urgency approach to try and sell your product when in reality, if you take a step back and you're like brands that actually have a brand, they can charge like a lot more and they don't have to like work so hard to try and get that sale. Um, I think you you have to do both, right? You have to have a strong direct response strategy to win on paid social, but having um the brand that builds trust and the storytelling and all that will only make your life easier.

**Sarah Levinger:** Yep. 100%. I agree. No notes. I mean the the only thing I will add to like both of these lovely ladies, you guys are so smart. Um, one of the things that I will add is if anybody is metric focused, especially at like the top of the brand, the only thing that you can do is like we talked about before, tag stuff. Just tag everything you've got and show them we've actually got numbers behind this art that we've created. That's about the only way that I've been able to kind of work around it is like, all right, they don't believe that like what they don't believe me when I say that we should run more branded stuff, more focused stuff, then what I need to do is I need to go back and show them that artwork can also perform incredibly well as long as you do it incredibly well. So yeah, tag stuff. Just tag it.

**Lee Joselowitz:** I'd love to add to that whole spiel. I could not agree more and I can also emphasize that some of our best performing ads across our client roster in 2025 were all trend-based. We're all like what is trending on organic and how can we make a a good ad out of that or maybe it's even just the the exact organic post is a good ad in itself. To your point. So I think that that's that's such a huge and valuable point.

**Mirella Crespi:** Yeah, absolutely. Like when we put together concepts and we're presenting to a brand, like here's the research that came from understanding your audience and your competitors, like there is the like what's going on in organic fuse slides where it's just like searching those topics and keywords and just like what are people naturally creating content around because you want to make sure it makes sense and like Lee like you said, there's so much that you can borrow from that in terms of like ideas for hooks for creatives and so on. Um, we have this like massive what we call video techniques database that all it is is like a DM chat with my entire team that every time we see organic content that uses a transition in a cool way, a sound in an interesting way, a new effect, a new this, we like save it and it has this like massive notion um references. So when our creative strategy team is building storyboards, we're literally grabbing the gifts from this techniques database because then it's just like you when you are scripting ads in this mindset of like, okay, I need to write like a strong hook and then I need to agitate the problem and then introduce the product and then add social proof, you can get so stuck in just like like only these visuals, but then if you like sprinkle on top like these techniques from organic, it definitely helps.

**Evan Lee:** So this really gets me thinking about like how to, speaking about systems. So it's one thing building the system and it's another thing like staffing it and like who does the work here. And something that I'm always curious about and I probably have a follow up after as my mind's working, is like is the creative strategist and how I've kind of been seeing the world scope expanding where it starts to think about what does organic first content look like. Because the main question that I am curious about and and Sarah I'll throw it to you first, are these the same skill sets? Like making direct response ads and making things that will do well on organic? Are those the same skill sets in your opinion? Yes or no?

**Sarah Levinger:** Ooh, that's a really good question. Not prepared for this one. Okay. Are they the same skill set? Um, I think on the production side, I'd say yes, 'cause like I said, they're both content. It's just content. If you can make good content, you can get attention and if you can make, you know, good ads, you can get attention. The only difference I would say is aligning with somebody's need to purchase something, that's a different skill set than just creating good content. So in that respect, like content can get you the eyeballs you need and the people that are probably well aligned to your products. Getting them to make an actual like purchase, pushing behavior, that's a different skill set that I think that a lot of people, especially if you're, you know, a direct response marketer, that's where your skill set comes in. The sell though, I will say, which is really interesting, you can get good at content, get good at direct response marketing. The sell is different than it used to be. Like especially in 2025, 2026, it's not nearly as blatant as we saw when UGC started to come up. Like as soon as UGC came into the ecosystem, it was like AIDA, man, every single one of these and they just printed. It was like, holy cow, this is amazing. Now all of a sudden, you can use AIDA and people just scroll right past it as soon as they hear you transition to the next piece of it. So, to Mirella's point, you got to get good at kind of a subtle sell this year. It's all about that like subtlety. Yeah.

**Lee Joselowitz:** I agree with that 100%. It's about it's like believable. I think an ad has to be And I know I talk about trust so much, but I I kind of feel like um trust optimization for me is sort of like the new conversion optimization. Like stop thinking so much about the CTA and the like this is the formula. No, like think think about like how are you building trust with your audience? How are you making something believable? How are you sharing a story? I think that that's like the thinking that needs to kind of change now to be successful. And I think a really strong creative strategist, I agree with all of Sarah's points. I'll also say that I think collaboration is one of the key skills. I don't think that a creative strategist needs or or even is humanly able or possible to do all the things that is expected of a creative strategist today and moving forward. I think that person has to get really good at knowing what they're good at, what they're not good at, who they need to work with, who they need to collaborate with, who they need to bring in to to get the ultimate desired results.

**Mirella Crespi:** Yeah, and if you don't invest in that, you are fighting the hardest fight because it's always just going to be a race to the bottom and it's just going to be about like pricing and offers and discounts and like, you know, you're always trying to go with the DR scarcity, urgency approach to try and sell your product when in reality, if you take a step back and you're like brands that actually have a brand, they can charge like a lot more and they don't have to like work so hard to try and get that sale. Um, I think you you have to do both, right? You have to have a strong direct response strategy to win on paid social, but having um the brand that builds trust and the storytelling and all that will only make your life easier.

**Sarah Levinger:** Yep. 100%. I agree. No notes. I mean the the only thing I will add to like both of these lovely ladies, you guys are so smart. Um, one of the things that I will add is if anybody is metric focused, especially at like the top of the brand, the only thing that you can do is like we talked about before, tag stuff. Just tag everything you've got and show them we've actually got numbers behind this art that we've created. That's about the only way that I've been able to kind of work around it is like, all right, they don't believe that like what they don't believe me when I say that we should run more branded stuff, more focused stuff, then what I need to do is I need to go back and show them that artwork can also perform incredibly well as long as you do it incredibly well. So yeah, tag stuff. Just tag it.

**Lee Joselowitz:** I'd love to add to that whole spiel. I could not agree more and I can also emphasize that some of our best performing ads across our client roster in 2025 were all trend-based. We're all like what is trending on organic and how can we make a a good ad out of that or maybe it's even just the the exact organic post is a good ad in itself. To your point. So I think that that's that's such a huge and valuable point.

**Mirella Crespi:** Yeah, absolutely. Like when we put together concepts and we're presenting to a brand, like here's the research that came from understanding your audience and your competitors, like there is the like what's going on in organic fuse slides where it's just like searching those topics and keywords and just like what are people naturally creating content around because you want to make sure it makes sense and like Lee like you said, there's so much that you can borrow from that in terms of like ideas for hooks for creatives and so on. Um, we have this like massive what we call video techniques database that all it is is like a DM chat with my entire team that every time we see organic content that uses a transition in a cool way, a sound in an interesting way, a new effect, a new this, we like save it and it has this like massive notion um references. So when our creative strategy team is building storyboards, we're literally grabbing the gifts from this techniques database because then it's just like you when you are scripting ads in this mindset of like, okay, I need to write like a strong hook and then I need to agitate the problem and then introduce the product and then add social proof, you can get so stuck in just like like only these visuals, but then if you like sprinkle on top like these techniques from organic, it definitely helps.

**Evan Lee:** So this really gets me thinking about like how to, speaking about systems. So it's one thing building the system and it's another thing like staffing it and like who does the work here. And something that I'm always curious about and I probably have a follow up after as my mind's working, is like is the creative strategist and how I've kind of been seeing the world scope expanding where it starts to think about what does organic first content look like. Because the main question that I am curious about and and Sarah I'll throw it to you first, are these the same skill sets? Like making direct response ads and making things that will do well on organic? Are those the same skill sets in your opinion? Yes or no?

**Sarah Levinger:** Ooh, that's a really good question. Not prepared for this one. Okay. Are they the same skill set? Um, I think on the production side, I'd say yes, 'cause like I said, they're both content. It's just content. If you can make good content, you can get attention and if you can make, you know, good ads, you can get attention. The only difference I would say is aligning with somebody's need to purchase something, that's a different skill set than just creating good content. So in that respect, like content can get you the eyeballs you need and the people that are probably well aligned to your products. Getting them to make an actual like purchase, pushing behavior, that's a different skill set that I think that a lot of people, especially if you're, you know, a direct response marketer, that's where your skill set comes in. The sell though, I will say, which is really interesting, you can get good at content, get good at direct response marketing. The sell is different than it used to be. Like especially in 2025, 2026, it's not nearly as blatant as we saw when UGC started to come up. Like as soon as UGC came into the ecosystem, it was like AIDA, man, every single one of these and they just printed. It was like, holy cow, this is amazing. Now all of a sudden, you can use AIDA and people just scroll right past it as soon as they hear you transition to the next piece of it. So, to Mirella's point, you got to get good at kind of a subtle sell this year. It's all about that like subtlety. Yeah.

**Lee Joselowitz:** I agree with that 100%. It's about it's like believable. I think an ad has to be And I know I talk about trust so much, but I I kind of feel like um trust optimization for me is sort of like the new conversion optimization. Like stop thinking so much about the CTA and the like this is the formula. No, like think think about like how are you building trust with your audience? How are you making something believable? How are you sharing a story? I think that that's like the thinking that needs to kind of change now to be successful. And I think a really strong creative strategist, I agree with all of Sarah's points. I'll also say that I think collaboration is one of the key skills. I don't think that a creative strategist needs or or even is humanly able or possible to do all the things that is expected of a creative strategist today and moving forward. I think that person has to get really good at knowing what they're good at, what they're not good at, who they need to work with, who they need to collaborate with, who they need to bring in to to get the ultimate desired results.

**Mirella Crespi:** Yeah, and if you don't invest in that, you are fighting the hardest fight because it's always just going to be a race to the bottom and it's just going to be about like pricing and offers and discounts and like, you know, you're always trying to go with the DR scarcity, urgency approach to try and sell your product when in reality, if you take a step back and you're like brands that actually have a brand, they can charge like a lot more and they don't have to like work so hard to try and get that sale. Um, I think you you have to do both, right? You have to have a strong direct response strategy to win on paid social, but having um the brand that builds trust and the storytelling and all that will only make your life easier.

**Sarah Levinger:** Yep. 100%. I agree. No notes. I mean the the only thing I will add to like both of these lovely ladies, you guys are so smart. Um, one of the things that I will add is if anybody is metric focused, especially at like the top of the brand, the only thing that you can do is like we talked about before, tag stuff. Just tag everything you've got and show them we've actually got numbers behind this art that we've created. That's about the only way that I've been able to kind of work around it is like, all right, they don't believe that like what they don't believe me when I say that we should run more branded stuff, more focused stuff, then what I need to do is I need to go back and show them that artwork can also perform incredibly well as long as you do it incredibly well. So yeah, tag stuff. Just tag it.

**Lee Joselowitz:** I'd love to add to that whole spiel. I could not agree more and I can also emphasize that some of our best performing ads across our client roster in 2025 were all trend-based. We're all like what is trending on organic and how can we make a a good ad out of that or maybe it's even just the the exact organic post is a good ad in itself. To your point. So I think that that's that's such a huge and valuable point.

**Mirella Crespi:** Yeah, absolutely. Like when we put together concepts and we're presenting to a brand, like here's the research that came from understanding your audience and your competitors, like there is the like what's going on in organic fuse slides where it's just like searching those topics and keywords and just like what are people naturally creating content around because you want to make sure it makes sense and like Lee like you said, there's so much that you can borrow from that in terms of like ideas for hooks for creatives and so on. Um, we have this like massive what we call video techniques database that all it is is like a DM chat with my entire team that every time we see organic content that uses a transition in a cool way, a sound in an interesting way, a new effect, a new this, we like save it and it has this like massive notion um references. So when our creative strategy team is building storyboards, we're literally grabbing the gifts from this techniques database because then it's just like you when you are scripting ads in this mindset of like, okay, I need to write like a strong hook and then I need to agitate the problem and then introduce the product and then add social proof, you can get so stuck in just like like only these visuals, but then if you like sprinkle on top like these techniques from organic, it definitely helps.

**Evan Lee:** So this really gets me thinking about like how to, speaking about systems. So it's one thing building the system and it's another thing like staffing it and like who does the work here. And something that I'm always curious about and I probably have a follow up after as my mind's working, is like is the creative strategist and how I've kind of been seeing the world scope expanding where it starts to think about what does organic first content look like. Because the main question that I am curious about and and Sarah I'll throw it to you first, are these the same skill sets? Like making direct response ads and making things that will do well on organic? Are those the same skill sets in your opinion? Yes or no?

**Sarah Levinger:** Ooh, that's a really good question. Not prepared for this one. Okay. Are they the same skill set? Um, I think on the production side, I'd say yes, 'cause like I said, they're both content. It's just content. If you can make good content, you can get attention and if you can make, you know, good ads, you can get attention. The only difference I would say is aligning with somebody's need to purchase something, that's a different skill set than just creating good content. So in that respect, like content can get you the eyeballs you need and the people that are probably well aligned to your products. Getting them to make an actual like purchase, pushing behavior, that's a different skill set that I think that a lot of people, especially if you're, you know, a direct response marketer, that's where your skill set comes in. The sell though, I will say, which is really interesting, you can get good at content, get good at direct response marketing. The sell is different than it used to be. Like especially in 2025, 2026, it's not nearly as blatant as we saw when UGC started to come up. Like as soon as UGC came into the ecosystem, it was like AIDA, man, every single one of these and they just printed. It was like, holy cow, this is amazing. Now all of a sudden, you can use AIDA and people just scroll right past it as soon as they hear you transition to the next piece of it. So, to Mirella's point, you got to get good at kind of a subtle sell this year. It's all about that like subtlety. Yeah.

**Lee Joselowitz:** I agree with that 100%. It's about it's like believable. I think an ad has to be And I know I talk about trust so much, but I I kind of feel like um trust optimization for me is sort of like the new conversion optimization. Like stop thinking so much about the CTA and the like this is the formula. No, like think think about like how are you building trust with your audience? How are you making something believable? How are you sharing a story? I think that that's like the thinking that needs to kind of change now to be successful. And I think a really strong creative strategist, I agree with all of Sarah's points. I'll also say that I think collaboration is one of the key skills. I don't think that a creative strategist needs or or even is humanly able or possible to do all the things that is expected of a creative strategist today and moving forward. I think that person has to get really good at knowing what they're good at, what they're not good at, who they need to work with, who they need to collaborate with, who they need to bring in to to get the ultimate desired results.

**Mirella Crespi:** Yeah, and if you don't invest in that, you are fighting the hardest fight because it's always just going to be a race to the bottom and it's just going to be about like pricing and offers and discounts and like, you know, you're always trying to go with the DR scarcity, urgency approach to try and sell your product when in reality, if you take a step back and you're like brands that actually have a brand, they can charge like a lot more and they don't have to like work so hard to try and get that sale. Um, I think you you have to do both, right? You have to have a strong direct response strategy to win on paid social, but having um the brand that builds trust and the storytelling and all that will only make your life easier.

**Sarah Levinger:** Yep. 100%. I agree. No notes. I mean the the only thing I will add to like both of these lovely ladies, you guys are so smart. Um, one of the things that I will add is if anybody is metric focused, especially at like the top of the brand, the only thing that you can do is like we talked about before, tag stuff. Just tag everything you've got and show them we've actually got numbers behind this art that we've created. That's about the only way that I've been able to kind of work around it is like, all right, they don't believe that like what they don't believe me when I say that we should run more branded stuff, more focused stuff, then what I need to do is I need to go back and show them that artwork can also perform incredibly well as long as you do it incredibly well. So yeah, tag stuff. Just tag it.

**Lee Joselowitz:** I'd love to add to that whole spiel. I could not agree more and I can also emphasize that some of our best performing ads across our client roster in 2025 were all trend-based. We're all like what is trending on organic and how can we make a a good ad out of that or maybe it's even just the the exact organic post is a good ad in itself. To your point. So I think that that's that's such a huge and valuable point.

**Mirella Crespi:** Yeah, absolutely. Like when we put together concepts and we're presenting to a brand, like here's the research that came from understanding your audience and your competitors, like there is the like what's going on in organic fuse slides where it's just like searching those topics and keywords and just like what are people naturally creating content around because you want to make sure it makes sense and like Lee like you said, there's so much that you can borrow from that in terms of like ideas for hooks for creatives and so on. Um, we have this like massive what we call video techniques database that all it is is like a DM chat with my entire team that every time we see organic content that uses a transition in a cool way, a sound in an interesting way, a new effect, a new this, we like save it and it has this like massive notion um references. So when our creative strategy team is building storyboards, we're literally grabbing the gifts from this techniques database because then it's just like you when you are scripting ads in this mindset of like, okay, I need to write like a strong hook and then I need to agitate the problem and then introduce the product and then add social proof, you can get so stuck in just like like only these visuals, but then if you like sprinkle on top like these techniques from organic, it definitely helps.

**Evan Lee:** So this really gets me thinking about like how to, speaking about systems. So it's one thing building the system and it's another thing like staffing it and like who does the work here. And something that I'm always curious about and I probably have a follow up after as my mind's working, is like is the creative strategist and how I've kind of been seeing the world scope expanding where it starts to think about what does organic first content look like. Because the main question that I am curious about and and Sarah I'll throw it to you first, are these the same skill sets? Like making direct response ads and making things that will do well on organic? Are those the same skill sets in your opinion? Yes or no?

**Sarah Levinger:** Ooh, that's a really good question. Not prepared for this one. Okay. Are they the same skill set? Um, I think on the production side, I'd say yes, 'cause like I said, they're both content. It's just content. If you can make good content, you can get attention and if you can make, you know, good ads, you can get attention. The only difference I would say is aligning with somebody's need to purchase something, that's a different skill set than just creating good content. So in that respect, like content can get you the eyeballs you need and the people that are probably well aligned to your products. Getting them to make an actual like purchase, pushing behavior, that's a different skill set that I think that a lot of people, especially if you're, you know, a direct response marketer, that's where your skill set comes in. The sell though, I will say, which is really interesting, you can get good at content, get good at direct response marketing. The sell is different than it used to be. Like especially in 2025, 2026, it's not nearly as blatant as we saw when UGC started to come up. Like as soon as UGC came into the ecosystem, it was like AIDA, man, every single one of these and they just printed. It was like, holy cow, this is amazing. Now all of a sudden, you can use AIDA and people just scroll right past it as soon as they hear you transition to the next piece of it. So, to Mirella's point, you got to get good at kind of a subtle sell this year. It's all about that like subtlety. Yeah.

**Lee Joselowitz:** I agree with that 100%. It's about it's like believable. I think an ad has to be And I know I talk about trust so much, but I I kind of feel like um trust optimization for me is sort of like the new conversion optimization. Like stop thinking so much about the CTA and the like this is the formula. No, like think think about like how are you building trust with your audience? How are you making something believable? How are you sharing a story? I think that that's like the thinking that needs to kind of change now to be successful. And I think a really strong creative strategist, I agree with all of Sarah's points. I'll also say that I think collaboration is one of the key skills. I don't think that a creative strategist needs or or even is humanly able or possible to do all the things that is expected of a creative strategist today and moving forward. I think that person has to get really good at knowing what they're good at, what they're not good at, who they need to work with, who they need to collaborate with, who they need to bring in to to get the ultimate desired results.

**Mirella Crespi:** Yeah, and if you don't invest in that, you are fighting the hardest fight because it's always just going to be a race to the bottom and it's just going to be about like pricing and offers and discounts and like, you know, you're always trying to go with the DR scarcity, urgency approach to try and sell your product when in reality, if you take a step back and you're like brands that actually have a brand, they can charge like a lot more and they don't have to like work so hard to try and get that sale. Um, I think you you have to do both, right? You have to have a strong direct response strategy to win on paid social, but having um the brand that builds trust and the storytelling and all that will only make your life easier.

**Sarah Levinger:** Yep. 100%. I agree. No notes. I mean the the only thing I will add to like both of these lovely ladies, you guys are so smart. Um, one of the things that I will add is if anybody is metric focused, especially at like the top of the brand, the only thing that you can do is like we talked about before, tag stuff. Just tag everything you've got and show them we've actually got numbers behind this art that we've created. That's about the only way that I've been able to kind of work around it is like, all right, they don't believe that like what they don't believe me when I say that we should run more branded stuff, more focused stuff, then what I need to do is I need to go back and show them that artwork can also perform incredibly well as long as you do it incredibly well. So yeah, tag stuff. Just tag it.

**Lee Joselowitz:** I'd love to add to that whole spiel. I could not agree more and I can also emphasize that some of our best performing ads across our client roster in 2025 were all trend-based. We're all like what is trending on organic and how can we make a a good ad out of that or maybe it's even just the the exact organic post is a good ad in itself. To your point. So I think that that's that's such a huge and valuable point.

**Mirella Crespi:** Yeah, absolutely. Like when we put together concepts and we're presenting to a brand, like here's the research that came from understanding your audience and your competitors, like there is the like what's going on in organic fuse slides where it's just like searching those topics and keywords and just like what are people naturally creating content around because you want to make sure it makes sense and like Lee like you said, there's so much that you can borrow from that in terms of like ideas for hooks for creatives and so on. Um, we have this like massive what we call video techniques database that all it is is like a DM chat with my entire team that every time we see organic content that uses a transition in a cool way, a sound in an interesting way, a new effect, a new this, we like save it and it has this like massive notion um references. So when our creative strategy team is building storyboards, we're literally grabbing the gifts from this techniques database because then it's just like you when you are scripting ads in this mindset of like, okay, I need to write like a strong hook and then I need to agitate the problem and then introduce the product and then add social proof, you can get so stuck in just like like only these visuals, but then if you like sprinkle on top like these techniques from organic, it definitely helps.

**Evan Lee:** So this really gets me thinking about like how to, speaking about systems. So it's one thing building the system and it's another thing like staffing it and like who does the work here. And something that I'm always curious about and I probably have a follow up after as my mind's working, is like is the creative strategist and how I've kind of been seeing the world scope expanding where it starts to think about what does organic first content look like. Because the main question that I am curious about and and Sarah I'll throw it to you first, are these the same skill sets? Like making direct response ads and making things that will do well on organic? Are those the same skill sets in your opinion? Yes or no?

**Sarah Levinger:** Ooh, that's a really good question. Not prepared for this one. Okay. Are they the same skill set? Um, I think on the production side, I'd say yes, 'cause like I said, they're both content. It's just content. If you can make good content, you can get attention and if you can make, you know, good ads, you can get attention. The only difference I would say is aligning with somebody's need to purchase something, that's a different skill set than just creating good content. So in that respect, like content can get you the eyeballs you need and the people that are probably well aligned to your products. Getting them to make an actual like purchase, pushing behavior, that's a different skill set that I think that a lot of people, especially if you're, you know, a direct response marketer, that's where your skill set comes in. The sell though, I will say, which is really interesting, you can get good at content, get good at direct response marketing. The sell is different than it used to be. Like especially in 2025, 2026, it's not nearly as blatant as we saw when UGC started to come up. Like as soon as UGC came into the ecosystem, it was like AIDA, man, every single one of these and they just printed. It was like, holy cow, this is amazing. Now all of a sudden, you can use AIDA and people just scroll right past it as soon as they hear you transition to the next piece of it. So, to Mirella's point, you got to get good at kind of a subtle sell this year. It's all about that like subtlety. Yeah.

**Lee Joselowitz:** I agree with that 100%. It's about it's like believable. I think an ad has to be And I know I talk about trust so much, but I I kind of feel like um trust optimization for me is sort of like the new conversion optimization. Like stop thinking so much about the CTA and the like this is the formula. No, like think think about like how are you building trust with your audience? How are you making something believable? How are you sharing a story? I think that that's like the thinking that needs to kind of change now to be successful. And I think a really strong creative strategist, I agree with all of Sarah's points. I'll also say that I think collaboration is one of the key skills. I don't think that a creative strategist needs or or even is humanly able or possible to do all the things that is expected of a creative strategist today and moving forward. I think that person has to get really good at knowing what they're good at, what they're not good at, who they need to work with, who they need to collaborate with, who they need to bring in to to get the ultimate desired results.

**Mirella Crespi:** Yeah, and if you don't invest in that, you are fighting the hardest fight because it's always just going to be a race to the bottom and it's just going to be about like pricing and offers and discounts and like, you know, you're always trying to go with the DR scarcity, urgency approach to try and sell your product when in reality, if you take a step back and you're like brands that actually have a brand, they can charge like a lot more and they don't have to like work so hard to try and get that sale. Um, I think you you have to do both, right? You have to have a strong direct response strategy to win on paid social, but having um the brand that builds trust and the storytelling and all that will only make your life easier.

**Sarah Levinger:** Yep. 100%. I agree. No notes. I mean the the only thing I will add to like both of these lovely ladies, you guys are so smart. Um, one of the things that I will add is if anybody is metric focused, especially at like the top of the brand, the only thing that you can do is like we talked about before, tag stuff. Just tag everything you've got and show them we've actually got numbers behind this art that we've created. That's about the only way that I've been able to kind of work around it is like, all right, they don't believe that like what they don't believe me when I say that we should run more branded stuff, more focused stuff, then what I need to do is I need to go back and show them that artwork can also perform incredibly well as long as you do it incredibly well. So yeah, tag stuff. Just tag it.

**Lee Joselowitz:** I'd love to add to that whole spiel. I could not agree more and I can also emphasize that some of our best performing ads across our client roster in 2025 were all trend-based. We're all like what is trending on organic and how can we make a a good ad out of that or maybe it's even just the the exact organic post is a good ad in itself. To your point. So I think that that's that's such a huge and valuable point.

**Mirella Crespi:** Yeah, absolutely. Like when we put together concepts and we're presenting to a brand, like here's the research that came from understanding your audience and your competitors, like there is the like what's going on in organic fuse slides where it's just like searching those topics and keywords and just like what are people naturally creating content around because you want to make sure it makes sense and like Lee like you said, there's so much that you can borrow from that in terms of like ideas for hooks for creatives and so on. Um, we have this like massive what we call video techniques database that all it is is like a DM chat with my entire team that every time we see organic content that uses a transition in a cool way, a sound in an interesting way, a new effect, a new this, we like save it and it has this like massive notion um references. So when our creative strategy team is building storyboards, we're literally grabbing the gifts from this techniques database because then it's just like you when you are scripting ads in this mindset of like, okay, I need to write like a strong hook and then I need to agitate the problem and then introduce the product and then add social proof, you can get so stuck in just like like only these visuals, but then if you like sprinkle on top like these techniques from organic, it definitely helps.

**Evan Lee:** So this really gets me thinking about like how to, speaking about systems. So it's one thing building the system and it's another thing like staffing it and like who does the work here. And something that I'm always curious about and I probably have a follow up after as my mind's working, is like is the creative strategist and how I've kind of been seeing the world scope expanding where it starts to think about what does organic first content look like. Because the main question that I am curious about and and Sarah I'll throw it to you first, are these the same skill sets? Like making direct response ads and making things that will do well on organic? Are those the same skill sets in your opinion? Yes or no?

**Sarah Levinger:** Ooh, that's a really good question. Not prepared for this one. Okay. Are they the same skill set? Um, I think on the production side, I'd say yes, 'cause like I said, they're both content. It's just content. If you can make good content, you can get attention and if you can make, you know, good ads, you can get attention. The only difference I would say is aligning with somebody's need to purchase something, that's a different skill set than just creating good content. So in that respect, like content can get you the eyeballs you need and the people that are probably well aligned to your products. Getting them to make an actual like purchase, pushing behavior, that's a different skill set that I think that a lot of people, especially if you're, you know, a direct response marketer, that's where your skill set comes in. The sell though, I will say, which is really interesting, you can get good at content, get good at direct response marketing. The sell is different than it used to be. Like especially in 2025, 2026, it's not nearly as blatant as we saw when UGC started to come up. Like as soon as UGC came into the ecosystem, it was like AIDA, man, every single one of these and they just printed. It was like, holy cow, this is amazing. Now all of a sudden, you can use AIDA and people just scroll right past it as soon as they hear you transition to the next piece of it. So, to Mirella's point, you got to get good at kind of a subtle sell this year. It's all about that like subtlety. Yeah.

**Lee Joselowitz:** I agree with that 100%. It's about it's like believable. I think an ad has to be And I know I talk about trust so much, but I I kind of feel like um trust optimization for me is sort of like the new conversion optimization. Like stop thinking so much about the CTA and the like this is the formula. No, like think think about like how are you building trust with your audience? How are you making something believable? How are you sharing a story? I think that that's like the thinking that needs to kind of change now to be successful. And I think a really strong creative strategist, I agree with all of Sarah's points. I'll also say that I think collaboration is one of the key skills. I don't think that a creative strategist needs or or even is humanly able or possible to do all the things that is expected of a creative strategist today and moving forward. I think that person has to get really good at knowing what they're good at, what they're not good at, who they need to work with, who they need to collaborate with, who they need to bring in to to get the ultimate desired results.

**Mirella Crespi:** Yeah, and if you don't invest in that, you are fighting the hardest fight because it's always just going to be a race to the bottom and it's just going to be about like pricing and offers and discounts and like, you know, you're always trying to go with the DR scarcity, urgency approach to try and sell your product when in reality, if you take a step back and you're like brands that actually have a brand, they can charge like a lot more and they don't have to like work so hard to try and get that sale. Um, I think you you have to do both, right? You have to have a strong direct response strategy to win on paid social, but having um the brand that builds trust and the storytelling and all that will only make your life easier.

**Sarah Levinger:** Yep. 100%. I agree. No notes. I mean the the only thing I will add to like both of these lovely ladies, you guys are so smart. Um, one of the things that I will add is if anybody is metric focused, especially at like the top of the brand, the only thing that you can do is like we talked about before, tag stuff. Just tag everything you've got and show them we've actually got numbers behind this art that we've created. That's about the only way that I've been able to kind of work around it is like, all right, they don't believe that like what they don't believe me when I say that we should run more branded stuff, more focused stuff, then what I need to do is I need to go back and show them that artwork can also perform incredibly well as long as you do it incredibly well. So yeah, tag stuff. Just tag it.

**Lee Joselowitz:** I'd love to add to that whole spiel. I could not agree more and I can also emphasize that some of our best performing ads across our client roster in 2025 were all trend-based. We're all like what is trending on organic and how can we make a a good ad out of that or maybe it's even just the the exact organic post is a good ad in itself. To your point. So I think that that's that's such a huge and valuable point.

**Mirella Crespi:** Yeah, absolutely. Like when we put together concepts and we're presenting to a brand, like here's the research that came from understanding your audience and your competitors, like there is the like what's going on in organic fuse slides where it's just like searching those topics and keywords and just like what are people naturally creating content around because you want to make sure it makes sense and like Lee like you said, there's so much that you can borrow from that in terms of like ideas for hooks for creatives and so on. Um, we have this like massive what we call video techniques database that all it is is like a DM chat with my entire team that every time we see organic content that uses a transition in a cool way, a sound in an interesting way, a new effect, a new this, we like save it and it has this like massive notion um references. So when our creative strategy team is building storyboards, we're literally grabbing the gifts from this techniques database because then it's just like you when you are scripting ads in this mindset of like, okay, I need to write like a strong hook and then I need to agitate the problem and then introduce the product and then add social proof, you can get so stuck in just like like only these visuals, but then if you like sprinkle on top like these techniques from organic, it definitely helps.

**Evan Lee:** So this really gets me thinking about like how to, speaking about systems. So it's one thing building the system and it's another thing like staffing it and like who does the work here. And something that I'm always curious about and I probably have a follow up after as my mind's working, is like is the creative strategist and how I've kind of been seeing the world scope expanding where it starts to think about what does organic first content look like. Because the main question that I am curious about and and Sarah I'll throw it to you first, are these the same skill sets? Like making direct response ads and making things that will do well on organic? Are those the same skill sets in your opinion? Yes or no?

**Sarah Levinger:** Ooh, that's a really good question. Not prepared for this one. Okay. Are they the same skill set? Um, I think on the production side, I'd say yes, 'cause like I said, they're both content. It's just content. If you can make good content, you can get attention and if you can make, you know, good ads, you can get attention. The only difference I would say is aligning with somebody's need to purchase something, that's a different skill set than just creating good content. So in that respect, like content can get you the eyeballs you need and the people that are probably well aligned to your products. Getting them to make an actual like purchase, pushing behavior, that's a different skill set that I think that a lot of people, especially if you're, you know, a direct response marketer, that's where your skill set comes in. The sell though, I will say, which is really interesting, you can get good at content, get good at direct response marketing. The sell is different than it used to be. Like especially in 2025, 2026, it's not nearly as blatant as we saw when UGC started to come up. Like as soon as UGC came into the ecosystem, it was like AIDA, man, every single one of these and they just printed. It was like, holy cow, this is amazing. Now all of a sudden, you can use AIDA and people just scroll right past it as soon as they hear you transition to the next piece of it. So, to Mirella's point, you got to get good at kind of a subtle sell this year. It's all about that like subtlety. Yeah.

**Lee Joselowitz:** I agree with that 100%. It's about it's like believable. I think an ad has to be And I know I talk about trust so much, but I I kind of feel like um trust optimization for me is sort of like the new conversion optimization. Like stop thinking so much about the CTA and the like this is the formula. No, like think think about like how are you building trust with your audience? How are you making something believable? How are you sharing a story? I think that that's like the thinking that needs to kind of change now to be successful. And I think a really strong creative strategist, I agree with all of Sarah's points. I'll also say that I think collaboration is one of the key skills. I don't think that a creative strategist needs or or even is humanly able or possible to do all the things that is expected of a creative strategist today and moving forward. I think that person has to get really good at knowing what they're good at, what they're not good at, who they need to work with, who they need to collaborate with, who they need to bring in to to get the ultimate desired results.

**Mirella Crespi:** Yeah, and if you don't invest in that, you are fighting the hardest fight because it's always just going to be a race to the bottom and it's just going to be about like pricing and offers and discounts and like, you know, you're always trying to go with the DR scarcity, urgency approach to try and sell your product when in reality, if you take a step back and you're like brands that actually have a brand, they can charge like a lot more and they don't have to like work so hard to try and get that sale. Um, I think you you have to do both, right? You have to have a strong direct response strategy to win on paid social, but having um the brand that builds trust and the storytelling and all that will only make your life easier.

**Sarah Levinger:** Yep. 100%. I agree. No notes. I mean the the only thing I will add to like both of these lovely ladies, you guys are so smart. Um, one of the things that I will add is if anybody is metric focused, especially at like the top of the brand, the only thing that you can do is like we talked about before, tag stuff. Just tag everything you've got and show them we've actually got numbers behind this art that we've created. That's about the only way that I've been able to kind of work around it is like, all right, they don't believe that like what they don't believe me when I say that we should run more branded stuff, more focused stuff, then what I need to do is I need to go back and show them that artwork can also perform incredibly well as long as you do it incredibly well. So yeah, tag stuff. Just tag it.

**Lee Joselowitz:** I'd love to add to that whole spiel. I could not agree more and I can also emphasize that some of our best performing ads across our client roster in 2025 were all trend-based. We're all like what is trending on organic and how can we make a a good ad out of that or maybe it's even just the the exact organic post is a good ad in itself. To your point. So I think that that's that's such a huge and valuable point.

**Mirella Crespi:** Yeah, absolutely. Like when we put together concepts and we're presenting to a brand, like here's the research that came from understanding your audience and your competitors, like there is the like what's going on in organic fuse slides where it's just like searching those topics and keywords and just like what are people naturally creating content around because you want to make sure it makes sense and like Lee like you said, there's so much that you can borrow from that in terms of like ideas for hooks for creatives and so on. Um, we have this like massive what we call video techniques database that all it is is like a DM chat with my entire team that every time we see organic content that uses a transition in a cool way, a sound in an interesting way, a new effect, a new this, we like save it and it has this like massive notion um references. So when our creative strategy team is building storyboards, we're literally grabbing the gifts from this techniques database because then it's just like you when you are scripting ads in this mindset of like, okay, I need to write like a strong hook and then I need to agitate the problem and then introduce the product and then add social proof, you can get so stuck in just like like only these visuals, but then if you like sprinkle on top like these techniques from organic, it definitely helps.

**Evan Lee:** So this really gets me thinking about like how to, speaking about systems. So it's one thing building the system and it's another thing like staffing it and like who does the work here. And something that I'm always curious about and I probably have a follow up after as my mind's working, is like is the creative strategist and how I've kind of been seeing the world scope expanding where it starts to think about what does organic first content look like. Because the main question that I am curious about and and Sarah I'll throw it to you first, are these the same skill sets? Like making direct response ads and making things that will do well on organic? Are those the same skill sets in your opinion? Yes or no?

**Sarah Levinger:** Ooh, that's a really good question. Not prepared for this one. Okay. Are they the same skill set? Um, I think on the production side, I'd say yes, 'cause like I said, they're both content. It's just content. If you can make good content, you can get attention and if you can make, you know, good ads, you can get attention. The only difference I would say is aligning with somebody's need to purchase something, that's a different skill set than just creating good content. So in that respect, like content can get you the eyeballs you need and the people that are probably well aligned to your products. Getting them to make an actual like purchase, pushing behavior, that's a different skill set that I think that a lot of people, especially if you're, you know, a direct response marketer, that's where your skill set comes in. The sell though, I will say, which is really interesting, you can get good at content, get good at direct response marketing. The sell is different than it used to be. Like especially in 2025, 2026, it's not nearly as blatant as we saw when UGC started to come up. Like as soon as UGC came into the ecosystem, it was like AIDA, man, every single one of these and they just printed. It was like, holy cow, this is amazing. Now all of a sudden, you can use AIDA and people just scroll right past it as soon as they hear you transition to the next piece of it. So, to Mirella's point, you got to get good at kind of a subtle sell this year. It's all about that like subtlety. Yeah.

**Lee Joselowitz:** I agree with that 100%. It's about it's like believable. I think an ad has to be And I know I talk about trust so much, but I I kind of feel like um trust optimization for me is sort of like the new conversion optimization. Like stop thinking so much about the CTA and the like this is the formula. No, like think think about like how are you building trust with your audience? How are you making something believable? How are you sharing a story? I think that that's like the thinking that needs to kind of change now to be successful. And I think a really strong creative strategist, I agree with all of Sarah's points. I'll also say that I think collaboration is one of the key skills. I don't think that a creative strategist needs or or even is humanly able or possible to do all the things that is expected of a creative strategist today and moving forward. I think that person has to get really good at knowing what they're good at, what they're not good at, who they need to work with, who they need to collaborate with, who they need to bring in to to get the ultimate desired results.

**Mirella Crespi:** Yeah, and if you don't invest in that, you are fighting the hardest fight because it's always just going to be a race to the bottom and it's just going to be about like pricing and offers and discounts and like, you know, you're always trying to go with the DR scarcity, urgency approach to try and sell your product when in reality, if you take a step back and you're like brands that actually have a brand, they can charge like a lot more and they don't have to like work so hard to try and get that sale. Um, I think you you have to do both, right? You have to have a strong direct response strategy to win on paid social, but having um the brand that builds trust and the storytelling and all that will only make your life easier.

**Sarah Levinger:** Yep. 100%. I agree. No notes. I mean the the only thing I will add to like both of these lovely ladies, you guys are so smart. Um, one of the things that I will add is if anybody is metric focused, especially at like the top of the brand, the only thing that you can do is like we talked about before, tag stuff. Just tag everything you've got and show them we've actually got numbers behind this art that we've created. That's about the only way that I've been able to kind of work around it is like, all right, they don't believe that like what they don't believe me when I say that we should run more branded stuff, more focused stuff, then what I need to do is I need to go back and show them that artwork can also perform incredibly well as long as you do it incredibly well. So yeah, tag stuff. Just tag it.

**Lee Joselowitz:** I'd love to add to that whole spiel. I could not agree more and I can also emphasize that some of our best performing ads across our client roster in 2025 were all trend-based. We're all like what is trending on organic and how can we make a a good ad out of that or maybe it's even just the the exact organic post is a good ad in itself. To your point. So I think that that's that's such a huge and valuable point.

**Mirella Crespi:** Yeah, absolutely. Like when we put together concepts and we're presenting to a brand, like here's the research that came from understanding your audience and your competitors, like there is the like what's going on in organic fuse slides where it's just like searching those topics and keywords and just like what are people naturally creating content around because you want to make sure it makes sense and like Lee like you said, there's so much that you can borrow from that in terms of like ideas for hooks for creatives and so on. Um, we have this like massive what we call video techniques database that all it is is like a DM chat with my entire team that every time we see organic content that uses a transition in a cool way, a sound in an interesting way, a new effect, a new this, we like save it and it has this like massive notion um references. So when our creative strategy team is building storyboards, we're literally grabbing the gifts from this techniques database because then it's just like you when you are scripting ads in this mindset of like, okay, I need to write like a strong hook and then I need to agitate the problem and then introduce the product and then add social proof, you can get so stuck in just like like only these visuals, but then if you like sprinkle on top like these techniques from organic, it definitely helps.

**Evan Lee:** So this really gets me thinking about like how to, speaking about systems. So it's one thing building the system and it's another thing like staffing it and like who does the work here. And something that I'm always curious about and I probably have a follow up after as my mind's working, is like is the creative strategist and how I've kind of been seeing the world scope expanding where it starts to think about what does organic first content look like. Because the main question that I am curious about and and Sarah I'll throw it to you first, are these the same skill sets? Like making direct response ads and making things that will do well on organic? Are those the same skill sets in your opinion? Yes or no?

**Sarah Levinger:** Ooh, that's a really good question. Not prepared for this one. Okay. Are they the same skill set? Um, I think on the production side, I'd say yes, 'cause like I said, they're both content. It's just content. If you can make good content, you can get attention and if you can make, you know, good ads, you can get attention. The only difference I would say is aligning with somebody's need to purchase something, that's a different skill set than just creating good content. So in that respect, like content can get you the eyeballs you need and the people that are probably well aligned to your products. Getting them to make an actual like purchase, pushing behavior, that's a different skill set that I think that a lot of people, especially if you're, you know, a direct response marketer, that's where your skill set comes in. The sell though, I will say, which is really interesting, you can get good at content, get good at direct response marketing. The sell is different than it used to be. Like especially in 2025, 2026, it's not nearly as blatant as we saw when UGC started to come up. Like as soon as UGC came into the ecosystem, it was like AIDA, man, every single one of these and they just printed. It was like, holy cow, this is amazing. Now all of a sudden, you can use AIDA and people just scroll right past it as soon as they hear you transition to the next piece of it. So, to Mirella's point, you got to get good at kind of a subtle sell this year. It's all about that like subtlety. Yeah.

**Lee Joselowitz:** I agree with that 100%. It's about it's like believable. I think an ad has to be And I know I talk about trust so much, but I I kind of feel like um trust optimization for me is sort of like the new conversion optimization. Like stop thinking so much about the CTA and the like this is the formula. No, like think think about like how are you building trust with your audience? How are you making something believable? How are you sharing a story? I think that that's like the thinking that needs to kind of change now to be successful. And I think a really strong creative strategist, I agree with all of Sarah's points. I'll also say that I think collaboration is one of the key skills. I don't think that a creative strategist needs or or even is humanly able or possible to do all the things that is expected of a creative strategist today and moving forward. I think that person has to get really good at knowing what they're good at, what they're not good at, who they need to work with, who they need to collaborate with, who they need to bring in to to get the ultimate desired results.

**Mirella Crespi:** Yeah, and if you don't invest in that, you are fighting the hardest fight because it's always just going to be a race to the bottom and it's just going to be about like pricing and offers and discounts and like, you know, you're always trying to go with the DR scarcity, urgency approach to try and sell your product when in reality, if you take a step back and you're like brands that actually have a brand, they can charge like a lot more and they don't have to like work so hard to try and get that sale. Um, I think you you have to do both, right? You have to have a strong direct response strategy to win on paid social, but having um the brand that builds trust and the storytelling and all that will only make your life easier.

**Sarah Levinger:** Yep. 100%. I agree. No notes. I mean the the only thing I will add to like both of these lovely ladies, you guys are so smart. Um, one of the things that I will add is if anybody is metric focused, especially at like the top of the brand, the only thing that you can do is like we talked about before, tag stuff. Just tag everything you've got and show them we've actually got numbers behind this art that we've created. That's about the only way that I've been able to kind of work around it is like, all right, they don't believe that like what they don't believe me when I say that we should run more branded stuff, more focused stuff, then what I need to do is I need to go back and show them that artwork can also perform incredibly well as long as you do it incredibly well. So yeah, tag stuff. Just tag it.

**Lee Joselowitz:** I'd love to add to that whole spiel. I could not agree more and I can also emphasize that some of our best performing ads across our client roster in 2025 were all trend-based. We're all like what is trending on organic and how can we make a a good ad out of that or maybe it's even just the the exact organic post is a good ad in itself. To your point. So I think that that's that's such a huge and valuable point.

**Mirella Crespi:** Yeah, absolutely. Like when we put together concepts and we're presenting to a brand, like here's the research that came from understanding your audience and your competitors, like there is the like what's going on in organic fuse slides where it's just like searching those topics and keywords and just like what are people naturally creating content around because you want to make sure it makes sense and like Lee like you said, there's so much that you can borrow from that in terms of like ideas for hooks for creatives and so on. Um, we have this like massive what we call video techniques database that all it is is like a DM chat with my entire team that every time we see organic content that uses a transition in a cool way, a sound in an interesting way, a new effect, a new this, we like save it and it has this like massive notion um references. So when our creative strategy team is building storyboards, we're literally grabbing the gifts from this techniques database because then it's just like you when you are scripting ads in this mindset of like, okay, I need to write like a strong hook and then I need to agitate the problem and then introduce the product and then add social proof, you can get so stuck in just like like only these visuals, but then if you like sprinkle on top like these techniques from organic, it definitely helps.

**Evan Lee:** So this really gets me thinking about like how to, speaking about systems. So it's one thing building the system and it's another thing like staffing it and like who does the work here. And something that I'm always curious about and I probably have a follow up after as my mind's working, is like is the creative strategist and how I've kind of been seeing the world scope expanding where it starts to think about what does organic first content look like. Because the main question that I am curious about and and Sarah I'll throw it to you first, are these the same skill sets? Like making direct response ads and making things that will do well on organic? Are those the same skill sets in your opinion? Yes or no?

**Sarah Levinger:** Ooh, that's a really good question. Not prepared for this one. Okay. Are they the same skill set? Um, I think on the production side, I'd say yes, 'cause like I said, they're both content. It's just content. If you can make good content, you can get attention and if you can make, you know, good ads, you can get attention. The only difference I would say is aligning with somebody's need to purchase something, that's a different skill set than just creating good content. So in that respect, like content can get you the eyeballs you need and the people that are probably well aligned to your products. Getting them to make an actual like purchase, pushing behavior, that's a different skill set that I think that a lot of people, especially if you're, you know, a direct response marketer, that's where your skill set comes in. The sell though, I will say, which is really interesting, you can get good at content, get good at direct response marketing. The sell is different than it used to be. Like especially in 2025, 2026, it's not nearly as blatant as we saw when UGC started to come up. Like as soon as UGC came into the ecosystem, it was like AIDA, man, every single one of these and they just printed. It was like, holy cow, this is amazing. Now all of a sudden, you can use AIDA and people just scroll right past it as soon as they hear you transition to the next piece of it. So, to Mirella's point, you got to get good at kind of a subtle sell this year. It's all about that like subtlety. Yeah.

**Lee Joselowitz:** I agree with that 100%. It's about it's like believable. I think an ad has to be And I know I talk about trust so much, but I I kind of feel like um trust optimization for me is sort of like the new conversion optimization. Like stop thinking so much about the CTA and the like this is the formula. No, like think think about like how are you building trust with your audience? How are you making something believable? How are you sharing a story? I think that that's like the thinking that needs to kind of change now to be successful. And I think a really strong creative strategist, I agree with all of Sarah's points. I'll also say that I think collaboration is one of the key skills. I don't think that a creative strategist needs or or even is humanly able or possible to do all the things that is expected of a creative strategist today and moving forward. I think that person has to get really good at knowing what they're good at, what they're not good at, who they need to work with, who they need to collaborate with, who they need to bring in to to get the ultimate desired results.

**Mirella Crespi:** Yeah, and if you don't invest in that, you are fighting the hardest fight because it's always just going to be a race to the bottom and it's just going to be about like pricing and offers and discounts and like, you know, you're always trying to go with the DR scarcity, urgency approach to try and sell your product when in reality, if you take a step back and you're like brands that actually have a brand, they can charge like a lot more and they don't have to like work so hard to try and get that sale. Um, I think you you have to do both, right? You have to have a strong direct response strategy to win on paid social, but having um the brand that builds trust and the storytelling and all that will only make your life easier.

**Sarah Levinger:** Yep. 100%. I agree. No notes. I mean the the only thing I will add to like both of these lovely ladies, you guys are so smart. Um, one of the things that I will add is if anybody is metric focused, especially at like the top of the brand, the only thing that you can do is like we talked about before, tag stuff. Just tag everything you've got and show them we've actually got numbers behind this art that we've created. That's about the only way that I've been able to kind of work around it is like, all right, they don't believe that like what they don't believe me when I say that we should run more branded stuff, more focused stuff, then what I need to do is I need to go back and show them that artwork can also perform incredibly well as long as you do it incredibly well. So yeah, tag stuff. Just tag it.

**Lee Joselowitz:** I'd love to add to that whole spiel. I could not agree more and I can also emphasize that some of our best performing ads across our client roster in 2025 were all trend-based. We're all like what is trending on organic and how can we make a a good ad out of that or maybe it's even just the the exact organic post is a good ad in itself. To your point. So I think that that's that's such a huge and valuable point.

**Mirella Crespi:** Yeah, absolutely. Like when we put together concepts and we're presenting to a brand, like here's the research that came from understanding your audience and your competitors, like there is the like what's going on in organic fuse slides where it's just like searching those topics and keywords and just like what are people naturally creating content around because you want to make sure it makes sense and like Lee like you said, there's so much that you can borrow from that in terms of like ideas for hooks for creatives and so on. Um, we have this like massive what we call video techniques database that all it is is like a DM chat with my entire team that every time we see organic content that uses a transition in a cool way, a sound in an interesting way, a new effect, a new this, we like save it and it has this like massive notion um references. So when our creative strategy team is building storyboards, we're literally grabbing the gifts from this techniques database because then it's just like you when you are scripting ads in this mindset of like, okay, I need to write like a strong hook and then I need to agitate the problem and then introduce the product and then add social proof, you can get so stuck in just like like only these visuals, but then if you like sprinkle on top like these techniques from organic, it definitely helps.

**Evan Lee:** So this really gets me thinking about like how to, speaking about systems. So it's one thing building the system and it's another thing like staffing it and like who does the work here. And something that I'm always curious about and I probably have a follow up after as my mind's working, is like is the creative strategist and how I've kind of been seeing the world scope expanding where it starts to think about what does organic first content look like. Because the main question that I am curious about and and Sarah I'll throw it to you first, are these the same skill sets? Like making direct response ads and making things that will do well on organic? Are those the same skill sets in your opinion? Yes or no?

**Sarah Levinger:** Ooh, that's a really good question. Not prepared for this one. Okay. Are they the same skill set? Um, I think on the production side, I'd say yes, 'cause like I said, they're both content. It's just content. If you can make good content, you can get attention and if you can make, you know, good ads, you can get attention. The only difference I would say is aligning with somebody's need to purchase something, that's a different skill set than just creating good content. So in that respect, like content can get you the eyeballs you need and the people that are probably well aligned to your products. Getting them to make an actual like purchase, pushing behavior, that's a different skill set that I think that a lot of people, especially if you're, you know, a direct response marketer, that's where your skill set comes in. The sell though, I will say, which is really interesting, you can get good at content, get good at direct response marketing. The sell is different than it used to be. Like especially in 2025, 2026, it's not nearly as blatant as we saw when UGC started to come up. Like as soon as UGC came into the ecosystem, it was like AIDA, man, every single one of these and they just printed. It was like, holy cow, this is amazing. Now all of a sudden, you can use AIDA and people just scroll right past it as soon as they hear you transition to the next piece of it. So, to Mirella's point, you got to get good at kind of a subtle sell this year. It's all about that like subtlety. Yeah.

**Lee Joselowitz:** I agree with that 100%. It's about it's like believable. I think an ad has to be And I know I talk about trust so much, but I I kind of feel like um trust optimization for me is sort of like the new conversion optimization. Like stop thinking so much about the CTA and the like this is the formula. No, like think think about like how are you building trust with your audience? How are you making something believable? How are you sharing a story? I think that that's like the thinking that needs to kind of change now to be successful. And I think a really strong creative strategist, I agree with all of Sarah's points. I'll also say that I think collaboration is one of the key skills. I don't think that a creative strategist needs or or even is humanly able or possible to do all the things that is expected of a creative strategist today and moving forward. I think that person has to get really good at knowing what they're good at, what they're not good at, who they need to work with, who they need to collaborate with, who they need to bring in to to get the ultimate desired results.

**Mirella Crespi:** Yeah, and if you don't invest in that, you are fighting the hardest fight because it's always just going to be a race to the bottom and it's just going to be about like pricing and offers and discounts and like, you know, you're always trying to go with the DR scarcity, urgency approach to try and sell your product when in reality, if you take a step back and you're like brands that actually have a brand, they can charge like a lot more and they don't have to like work so hard to try and get that sale. Um, I think you you have to do both, right? You have to have a strong direct response strategy to win on paid social, but having um the brand that builds trust and the storytelling and all that will only make your life easier.

**Sarah Levinger:** Yep. 100%. I agree. No notes. I mean the the only thing I will add to like both of these lovely ladies, you guys are so smart. Um, one of the things that I will add is if anybody is metric focused, especially at like the top of the brand, the only thing that you can do is like we talked about before, tag stuff. Just tag everything you've got and show them we''ve actually got numbers behind this art that we've created. That's about the only way that I've been able to kind of work around it is like, all right, they don't believe that like what they don't believe me when I say that we should run more branded stuff, more focused stuff, then what I need to do is I need to go back and show them that artwork can also perform incredibly well as long as you do it incredibly well. So yeah, tag stuff. Just tag it.

**Lee Joselowitz:** I'd love to add to that whole spiel. I could not agree more and I can also emphasize that some of our best performing ads across our client roster in 2025 were all trend-based. We're all like what is trending on organic and how can we make a a good ad out of that or maybe it's even just the the exact organic post is a good ad in itself. To your point. So I think that that's that's such a huge and valuable point.

**Mirella Crespi:** Yeah, absolutely. Like when we put together concepts and we're presenting to a brand, like here's the research that came from understanding your audience and your competitors, like there is the like what's going on in organic fuse slides where it's just like searching those topics and keywords and just like what are people naturally creating content around because you want to make sure it makes sense and like Lee like you said, there's so much that you can borrow from that in terms of like ideas for hooks for creatives and so on. Um, we have this like massive what we call video techniques database that all it is is like a DM chat with my entire team that every time we see organic content that uses a transition in a cool way, a sound in an interesting way, a new effect, a new this, we like save it and it has this like massive notion um references. So when our creative strategy team is building storyboards, we're literally grabbing the gifts from this techniques database because then it's just like you when you are scripting ads in this mindset of like, okay, I need to write like a strong hook and then I need to agitate the problem and then introduce the product and then add social proof, you can get so stuck in just like like only these visuals, but then if you like sprinkle on top like these techniques from organic, it definitely helps.

**Evan Lee:** So this really gets me thinking about like how to, speaking about systems. So it's one thing building the system and it's another thing like staffing it and like who does the work here. And something that I'm always curious about and I probably have a follow up after as my mind's working, is like is the creative strategist and how I've kind of been seeing the world scope expanding where it starts to think about what does organic first content look like. Because the main question that I am curious about and and Sarah I'll throw it to you first, are these the same skill sets? Like making direct response ads and making things that will do well on organic? Are those the same skill sets in your opinion? Yes or no?

**Sarah Levinger:** Ooh, that's a really good question. Not prepared for this one. Okay. Are they the same skill set? Um, I think on the production side, I'd say yes, 'cause like I said, they're both content. It's just content. If you can make good content, you can get attention and if you can make, you know, good ads, you can get attention. The only difference I would say is aligning with somebody's need to purchase something, that's a different skill set than just creating good content. So in that respect, like content can get you the eyeballs you need and the people that are probably well aligned to your products. Getting them to make an actual like purchase, pushing behavior, that's a different skill set that I think that a lot of people, especially if you're, you know, a direct response marketer, that's where your skill set comes in. The sell though, I will say, which is really interesting, you can get good at content, get good at direct response marketing. The sell is different than it used to be. Like especially in 2025, 2026, it's not nearly as blatant as we saw when UGC started to come up. Like as soon as UGC came into the ecosystem, it was like AIDA, man, every single one of these and they just printed. It was like, holy cow, this is amazing. Now all of a sudden, you can use AIDA and people just scroll right past it as soon as they hear you transition to the next piece of it. So, to Mirella's point, you got to get good at kind of a subtle sell this year. It's all about that like subtlety. Yeah.

**Lee Joselowitz:** I agree with that 100%. It's about it's like believable. I think an ad has to be And I know I talk about trust so much, but I I kind of feel like um trust optimization for me is sort of like the new conversion optimization. Like stop thinking so much about the CTA and the like this is the formula. No, like think think about like how are you building trust with your audience? How are you making something believable? How are you sharing a story? I think that that's like the thinking that needs to kind of change now to be successful. And I think a really strong creative strategist, I agree with all of Sarah's points. I'll also say that I think collaboration is one of the key skills. I don't think that a creative strategist needs or or even is humanly able or possible to do all the things that is expected of a creative strategist today and moving forward. I think that person has to get really good at knowing what they're good at, what they're not good at, who they need to work with, who they need to collaborate with, who they need to bring in to to get the ultimate desired results.

**Mirella Crespi:** Yeah, and if you don't invest in that, you are fighting the hardest fight because it's always just going to be a race to the bottom and it's just going to be about like pricing and offers and discounts and like, you know, you're always trying to go with the DR scarcity, urgency approach to try and sell your product when in reality, if you take a step back and you're like brands that actually have a brand, they can charge like a lot more and they don't have to like work so hard to try and get that sale. Um, I think you you have to do both, right? You have to have a strong direct response strategy to win on paid social, but having um the brand that builds trust and the storytelling and all that will only make your life easier.

**Sarah Levinger:** Yep. 100%. I agree. No notes. I mean the the only thing I will add to like both of these lovely ladies, you guys are so smart. Um, one of the things that I will add is if anybody is metric focused, especially at like the top of the brand, the only thing that you can do is like we talked about before, tag stuff. Just tag everything you've got and show them we've actually got numbers behind this art that we've created. That's about the only way that I've been able to kind of work around it is like, all right, they don't believe that like what they don't believe me when I say that we should run more branded stuff, more focused stuff, then what I need to do is I need to go back and show them that artwork can also perform incredibly well as long as you do it incredibly well. So yeah, tag stuff. Just tag it.

**Lee Joselowitz:** I'd love to add to that whole spiel. I could not agree more and I can also emphasize that some of our best performing ads across our client roster in 2025 were all trend-based. We're all like what is trending on organic and how can we make a a good ad out of that or maybe it's even just the the exact organic post is a good ad in itself. To your point. So I think that that's that's such a huge and valuable point.

**Mirella Crespi:** Yeah, absolutely. Like when we put together concepts and we're presenting to a brand, like here's the research that came from understanding your audience and your competitors, like there is the like what's going on in organic fuse slides where it's just like searching those topics and keywords and just like what are people naturally creating content around because you want to make sure it makes sense and like Lee like you said, there's so much that you can borrow from that in terms of like ideas for hooks for creatives and so on. Um, we have this like massive what we call video techniques database that all it is is like a DM chat with my entire team that every time we see organic content that uses a transition in a cool way, a sound in an interesting way, a new effect, a new this, we like save it and it has this like massive notion um references. So when our creative strategy team is building storyboards, we're literally grabbing the gifts from this techniques database because then it's just like you when you are scripting ads in this mindset of like, okay, I need to write like a strong hook and then I need to agitate the problem and then introduce the product and then add social proof, you can get so stuck in just like like only these visuals, but then if you like sprinkle on top like these techniques from organic, it definitely helps.

**Evan Lee:** So this really gets me thinking about like how to, speaking about systems. So it's one thing building the system and it's another thing like staffing it and like who does the work here. And something that I'm always curious about and I probably have a follow up after as my mind's working, is like is the creative strategist and how I've kind of been seeing the world scope expanding where it starts to think about what does organic first content look like. Because the main question that I am curious about and and Sarah I'll throw it to you first, are these the same skill sets? Like making direct response ads and making things that will do well on organic? Are those the same skill sets in your opinion? Yes or no?

**Sarah Levinger:** Ooh, that's a really good question. Not prepared for this one. Okay. Are they the same skill set? Um, I think on the production side, I'd say yes, 'cause like I said, they're both content. It's just content. If you can make good content, you can get attention and if you can make, you know, good ads, you can get attention. The only difference I would say is aligning with somebody's need to purchase something, that's a different skill set than just creating good content. So in that respect, like content can get you the eyeballs you need and the people that are probably well aligned to your products. Getting them to make an actual like purchase, pushing behavior, that's a different skill set that I think that a lot of people, especially if you're, you know, a direct response marketer, that's where your skill set comes in. The sell though, I will say, which is really interesting, you can get good at content, get good at direct response marketing. The sell is different than it used to be. Like especially in 2025, 2026, it's not nearly as blatant as we saw when UGC started to come up. Like as soon as UGC came into the ecosystem, it was like AIDA, man, every single one of these and they just printed. It was like, holy cow, this is amazing. Now all of a sudden, you can use AIDA and people just scroll right past it as soon as they hear you transition to the next piece of it. So, to Mirella's point, you got to get good at kind of a subtle sell this year. It's all about that like subtlety. Yeah.

**Lee Joselowitz:** I agree with that 100%. It's about it's like believable. I think an ad has to be And I know I talk about trust so much, but I I kind of feel like um trust optimization for me is sort of like the new conversion optimization. Like stop thinking so much about the CTA and the like this is the formula. No, like think think about like how are you building trust with your audience? How are you making something believable? How are you sharing a story? I think that that's like the thinking that needs to kind of change now to be successful. And I think a really strong creative strategist, I agree with all of Sarah's points. I'll also say that I think collaboration is one of the key skills. I don't think that a creative strategist needs or or even is humanly able or possible to do all the things that is expected of a creative strategist today and moving forward. I think that person has to get really good at knowing what they're good at, what they're not good at, who they need to work with, who they need to collaborate with, who they need to bring in to to get the ultimate desired results.

**Mirella Crespi:** Yeah, and if you don't invest in that, you are fighting the hardest fight because it's always just going to be a race to the bottom and it's just going to be about like pricing and offers and discounts and like, you know, you're always trying to go with the DR scarcity, urgency approach to try and sell your product when in reality, if you take a step back and you're like brands that actually have a brand, they can charge like a lot more and they don't have to like work so hard to try and get that sale. Um, I think you you have to do both, right? You have to have a strong direct response strategy to win on paid social, but having um the brand that builds trust and the storytelling and all that will only make your life easier.

**Sarah Levinger:** Yep. 100%. I agree. No notes. I mean the the only thing I will add to like both of these lovely ladies, you guys are so smart. Um, one of the things that I will add is if anybody is metric focused, especially at like the top of the brand, the only thing that you can do is like we talked about before, tag stuff. Just tag everything you've got and show them we've actually got numbers behind this art that we've created. That's about the only way that I've been able to kind of work around it is like, all right, they don't believe that like what they don't believe me when I say that we should run more branded stuff, more focused stuff, then what I need to do is I need to go back and show them that artwork can also perform incredibly well as long as you do it incredibly well. So yeah, tag stuff. Just tag it.

**Lee Joselowitz:** I'd love to add to that whole spiel. I could not agree more and I can also emphasize that some of our best performing ads across our client roster in 2025 were all trend-based. We're all like what is trending on organic and how can we make a a good ad out of that or maybe it's even just the the exact organic post is a good ad in itself. To your point. So I think that that's that's such a huge and valuable point.

**Mirella Crespi:** Yeah, absolutely. Like when we put together concepts and we're presenting to a brand, like here's the research that came from understanding your audience and your competitors, like there is the like what's going on in organic fuse slides where it's just like searching those topics and keywords and just like what are people naturally creating content around because you want to make sure it makes sense and like Lee like you said, there's so much that you can borrow from that in terms of like ideas for hooks for creatives and so on. Um, we have this like massive what we call video techniques database that all it is is like a DM chat with my entire team that every time we see organic content that uses a transition in a cool way, a sound in an interesting way, a new effect, a new this, we like save it and it has this like massive notion um references. So when our creative strategy team is building storyboards, we're literally grabbing the gifts from this techniques database because then it's just like you when you are scripting ads in this mindset of like, okay, I need to write like a strong hook and then I need to agitate the problem and then introduce the product and then add social proof, you can get so stuck in just like like only these visuals, but then if you like sprinkle on top like these techniques from organic, it definitely helps.

**Evan Lee:** So this really gets me thinking about like how to, speaking about systems. So it's one thing building the system and it's another thing like staffing it and like who does the work here. And something that I'm always curious about and I probably have a follow up after as my mind's working, is like is the creative strategist and how I've kind of been seeing the world scope expanding where it starts to think about what does organic first content look like. Because the main question that I am curious about and and Sarah I'll throw it to you first, are these the same skill sets? Like making direct response ads and making things that will do well on organic? Are those the same skill sets in your opinion? Yes or no?

**Sarah Levinger:** Ooh, that's a really good question. Not prepared for this one. Okay. Are they the same skill set? Um, I think on the production side, I'd say yes, 'cause like I said, they're both content. It's just content. If you can make good content, you can get attention and if you can make, you know, good ads, you can get attention. The only difference I would say is aligning with somebody's need to purchase something, that's a different skill set than just creating good content. So in that respect, like content can get you the eyeballs you need and the people that are probably well aligned to your products. Getting them to make an actual like purchase, pushing behavior, that's a different skill set that I think that a lot of people, especially if you're, you know, a direct response marketer, that's where your skill set comes in. The sell though, I will say, which is really interesting, you can get good at content, get good at direct response marketing. The sell is different than it used to be. Like especially in 2025, 2026, it's not nearly as blatant as we saw when UGC started to come up. Like as soon as UGC came into the ecosystem, it was like AIDA, man, every single one of these and they just printed. It was like, holy cow, this is amazing. Now all of a sudden, you can use AIDA and people just scroll right past it as soon as they hear you transition to the next piece of it. So, to Mirella's point, you got to get good at kind of a subtle sell this year. It's all about that like subtlety. Yeah.

**Lee Joselowitz:** I agree with that 100%. It's about it's like believable. I think an ad has to be And I know I talk about trust so much, but I I kind of feel like um trust optimization for me is sort of like the new conversion optimization. Like stop thinking so much about the CTA and the like this is the formula. No, like think think about like how are you building trust with your audience? How are you making something believable? How are you sharing a story? I think that that's like the thinking that needs to kind of change now to be successful. And I think a really strong creative strategist, I agree with all of Sarah's points. I'll also say that I think collaboration is one of the key skills. I don't think that a creative strategist needs or or even is humanly able or possible to do all the things that is expected of a creative strategist today and moving forward. I think that person has to get really good at knowing what they're good at, what they're not good at, who they need to work with, who they need to collaborate with, who they need to bring in to to get the ultimate desired results.

**Mirella Crespi:** Yeah, and if you don't invest in that, you are fighting the hardest fight because it's always just going to be a race to the bottom and it's just going to be about like pricing and offers and discounts and like, you know, you're always trying to go with the DR scarcity, urgency approach to try and sell your product when in reality, if you take a step back and you're like brands that actually have a brand, they can charge like a lot more and they don't have to like work so hard to try and get that sale. Um, I think you you have to do both, right? You have to have a strong direct response strategy to win on paid social, but having um the brand that builds trust and the storytelling and all that will only make your life easier.

**Sarah Levinger:** Yep. 100%. I agree. No notes. I mean the the only thing I will add to like both of these lovely ladies, you guys are so smart. Um, one of the things that I will add is if anybody is metric focused, especially at like the top of the brand, the only thing that you can do is like we talked about before, tag stuff. Just tag everything you've got and show them we've actually got numbers behind this art that we've created. That's about the only way that I've been able to kind of work around it is like, all right, they don't believe that like what they don't believe me when I say that we should run more branded stuff, more focused stuff, then what I need to do is I need to go back and show them that artwork can also perform incredibly well as long as you do it incredibly well. So yeah, tag stuff. Just tag it.

**Lee Joselowitz:** I'd love to add to that whole spiel. I could not agree more and I can also emphasize that some of our best performing ads across our client roster in 2025 were all trend-based. We're all like what is trending on organic and how can we make a a good ad out of that or maybe it's even just the the exact organic post is a good ad in itself. To your point. So I think that that's that's such a huge and valuable point.

**Mirella Crespi:** Yeah, absolutely. Like when we put together concepts and we're presenting to a brand, like here's the research that came from understanding your audience and your competitors, like there is the like what's going on in organic fuse slides where it's just like searching those topics and keywords and just like what are people naturally creating content around because you want to make sure it makes sense and like Lee like you said, there's so much that you can borrow from that in terms of like ideas for hooks for creatives and so on. Um, we have this like massive what we call video techniques database that all it is is like a DM chat with my entire team that every time we see organic content that uses a transition in a cool way, a sound in an interesting way, a new effect, a new this, we like save it and it has this like massive notion um references. So when our creative strategy team is building storyboards, we're literally grabbing the gifts from this techniques database because then it's just like you when you are scripting ads in this mindset of like, okay, I need to write like a strong hook and then I need to agitate the problem and then introduce the product and then add social proof, you can get so stuck in just like like only these visuals, but then if you like sprinkle on top like these techniques from organic, it definitely helps.

**Evan Lee:** So this really gets me thinking about like how to, speaking about systems. So it's one thing building the system and it's another thing like staffing it and like who does the work here. And something that I'm always curious about and I probably have a follow up after as my mind's working, is like is the creative strategist and how I've kind of been seeing the world scope expanding where it starts to think about what does organic first content look like. Because the main question that I am curious about and and Sarah I'll throw it to you first, are these the same skill sets? Like making direct response ads and making things that will do well on organic? Are those the same skill sets in your opinion? Yes or no?

**Sarah Levinger:** Ooh, that's a really good question. Not prepared for this one. Okay. Are they the same skill set? Um, I think on the production side, I'd say yes, 'cause like I said, they're both content. It's just content. If you can make good content, you can get attention and if you can make, you know, good ads, you can get attention. The only difference I would say is aligning with somebody's need to purchase something, that's a different skill set than just creating good content. So in that respect, like content can get you the eyeballs you need and the people that are probably well aligned to your products. Getting them to make an actual like purchase, pushing behavior, that's a different skill set that I think that a lot of people, especially if you're, you know, a direct response marketer, that's where your skill set comes in. The sell though, I will say, which is really interesting, you can get good at content, get good at direct response marketing. The sell is different than it used to be. Like especially in 2025, 2026, it's not nearly as blatant as we saw when UGC started to come up. Like as soon as UGC came into the ecosystem, it was like AIDA, man, every single one of these and they just printed. It was like, holy cow, this is amazing. Now all of a sudden, you can use AIDA and people just scroll right past it as soon as they hear you transition to the next piece of it. So, to Mirella's point, you got to get good at kind of a subtle sell this year. It's all about that like subtlety. Yeah.

**Lee Joselowitz:** I agree with that 100%. It's about it's like believable. I think an ad has to be And I know I talk about trust so much, but I I kind of feel like um trust optimization for me is sort of like the new conversion optimization. Like stop thinking so much about the CTA and the like this is the formula. No, like think think about like how are you building trust with your audience? How are you making something believable? How are you sharing a story? I think that that's like the thinking that needs to kind of change now to be successful. And I think a really strong creative strategist, I agree with all of Sarah's points. I'll also say that I think collaboration is one of the key skills. I don't think that a creative strategist needs or or even is humanly able or possible to do all the things that is expected of a creative strategist today and moving forward. I think that person has to get really good at knowing what they're good at, what they're not good at, who they need to work with, who they need to collaborate with, who they need to bring in to to get the ultimate desired results.

**Mirella Crespi:** Yeah, and if you don't invest in that, you are fighting the hardest fight because it's always just going to be a race to the bottom and it's just going to be about like pricing and offers and discounts and like, you know, you're always trying to go with the DR scarcity, urgency approach to try and sell your product when in reality, if you take a step back and you're like brands that actually have a brand, they can charge like a lot more and they don't have to like work so hard to try and get that sale. Um, I think you you have to do both, right? You have to have a strong direct response strategy to win on paid social, but having um the brand that builds trust and the storytelling and all that will only make your life easier.

**Sarah Levinger:** Yep. 100%. I agree. No notes. I mean the the only thing I will add to like both of these lovely ladies, you guys are so smart. Um, one of the things that I will add is if anybody is metric focused, especially at like the top of the brand, the only thing that you can do is like we talked about before, tag stuff. Just tag everything you've got and show them we've actually got numbers behind this art that we've created. That's about the only way that I've been able to kind of work around it is like, all right, they don't believe that like what they don't believe me when I say that we should run more branded stuff, more focused stuff, then what I need to do is I need to go back and show them that artwork can also perform incredibly well as long as you do it incredibly well. So yeah, tag stuff. Just tag it.

**Lee Joselowitz:** I'd love to add to that whole spiel. I could not agree more and I can also emphasize that some of our best performing ads across our client roster in 2025 were all trend-based. We're all like what is trending on organic and how can we make a a good ad out of that or maybe it's even just the the exact organic post is a good ad in itself. To your point. So I think that that's that's such a huge and valuable point.

**Mirella Crespi:** Yeah, absolutely. Like when we put together concepts and we're presenting to a brand, like here's the research that came from understanding your audience and your competitors, like there is the like what's going on in organic fuse slides where it's just like searching those topics and keywords and just like what are people naturally creating content around because you want to make sure it makes sense and like Lee like you said, there's so much that you can borrow from that in terms of like ideas for hooks for creatives and so on. Um, we have this like massive what we call video techniques database that all it is is like a DM chat with my entire team that every time we see organic content that uses a transition in a cool way, a sound in an interesting way, a new effect, a new this, we like save it and it has this like massive notion um references. So when our creative strategy team is building storyboards, we're literally grabbing the gifts from this techniques database because then it's just like you when you are scripting ads in this mindset of like, okay, I need to write like a strong hook and then I need to agitate the problem and then introduce the product and then add social proof, you can get so stuck in just like like only these visuals, but then if you like sprinkle on top like these techniques from organic, it definitely helps.

**Evan Lee:** So this really gets me thinking about like how to, speaking about systems. So it's one thing building the system and it's another thing like staffing it and like who does the work here. And something that I'm always curious about and I probably have a follow up after as my mind's working, is like is the creative strategist and how I've kind of been seeing the world scope expanding where it starts to think about what does organic first content look like. Because the main question that I am curious about and and Sarah I'll throw it to you first, are these the same skill sets? Like making direct response ads and making things that will do well on organic? Are those the same skill sets in your opinion? Yes or no?

**Sarah Levinger:** Ooh, that's a really good question. Not prepared for this one. Okay. Are they the same skill set? Um, I think on the production side, I'd say yes, 'cause like I said, they're both content. It's just content. If you can make good content, you can get attention and if you can make, you know, good ads, you can get attention. The only difference I would say is aligning with somebody's need to purchase something, that's a different skill set than just creating good content. So in that respect, like content can get you the eyeballs you need and the people that are probably well aligned to your products. Getting them to make an actual like purchase, pushing behavior, that's a different skill set that I think that a lot of people, especially if you're, you know, a direct response marketer, that's where your skill set comes in. The sell though, I will say, which is really interesting, you can get good at content, get good at direct response marketing. The sell is different than it used to be. Like especially in 2025, 2026, it's not nearly as blatant as we saw when UGC started to come up. Like as soon as UGC came into the ecosystem, it was like AIDA, man, every single one of these and they just printed. It was like, holy cow, this is amazing. Now all of a sudden, you can use AIDA and people just scroll right past it as soon as they hear you transition to the next piece of it. So, to Mirella's point, you got to get good at kind of a subtle sell this year. It's all about that like subtlety. Yeah.

**Lee Joselowitz:** I agree with that 100%. It's about it's like believable. I think an ad has to be And I know I talk about trust so much, but I I kind of feel like um trust optimization for me is sort of like the new conversion optimization. Like stop thinking so much about the CTA and the like this is the formula. No, like think think about like how are you building trust with your audience? How are you making something believable? How are you sharing a story? I think that that's like the thinking that needs to kind of change now to be successful. And I think a really strong creative strategist, I agree with all of Sarah's points. I'll also say that I think collaboration is one of the key skills. I don't think that a creative strategist needs or or even is humanly able or possible to do all the things that is expected of a creative strategist today and moving forward. I think that person has to get really good at knowing what they're good at, what they're not good at, who they need to work with, who they need to collaborate with, who they need to bring in to to get the ultimate desired results.

**Mirella Crespi:** Yeah, and if you don't invest in that, you are fighting the hardest fight because it's always just going to be a race to the bottom and it's just going to be about like pricing and offers and discounts and like, you know, you're always trying to go with the DR scarcity, urgency approach to try and sell your product when in reality, if you take a step back and you're like brands that actually have a brand, they can charge like a lot more and they don't have to like work so hard to try and get that sale. Um, I think you you have to do both, right? You have to have a strong direct response strategy to win on paid social, but having um the brand that builds trust and the storytelling and all that will only make your life easier.

**Sarah Levinger:** Yep. 100%. I agree. No notes. I mean the the only thing I will add to like both of these lovely ladies, you guys are so smart. Um, one of the things that I will add is if anybody is metric focused, especially at like the top of the brand, the only thing that you can do is like we talked about before, tag stuff. Just tag everything you've got and show them we've actually got numbers behind this art that we've created. That's about the only way that I've been able to kind of work around it is like, all right, they don't believe that like what they don't believe me when I say that we should run more branded stuff, more focused stuff, then what I need to do is I need to go back and show them that artwork can also perform incredibly well as long as you do it incredibly well. So yeah, tag stuff. Just tag it.

**Lee Joselowitz:** I'd love to add to that whole spiel. I could not agree more and I can also emphasize that some of our best performing ads across our client roster in 2025 were all trend-based. We're all like what is trending on organic and how can we make a a good ad out of that or maybe it's even just the the exact organic post is a good ad in itself. To your point. So I think that that's that's such a huge and valuable point.

**Mirella Crespi:** Yeah, absolutely. Like when we put together concepts and we're presenting to a brand, like here's the research that came from understanding your audience and your competitors, like there is the like what's going on in organic fuse slides where it's just like searching those topics and keywords and just like what are people naturally creating content around because you want to make sure it makes sense and like Lee like you said, there's so much that you can borrow from that in terms of like ideas for hooks for creatives and so on. Um, we have this like massive what we call video techniques database that all it is is like a DM chat with my entire team that every time we see organic content that uses a transition in a cool way, a sound in an interesting way, a new effect, a new this, we like save it and it has this like massive notion um references. So when our creative strategy team is building storyboards, we're literally grabbing the gifts from this techniques database because then it's just like you when you are scripting ads in this mindset of like, okay, I need to write like a strong hook and then I need to agitate the problem and then introduce the product and then add social proof, you can get so stuck in just like like only these visuals, but then if you like sprinkle on top like these techniques from organic, it definitely helps.

**Evan Lee:** So this really gets me thinking about like how to, speaking about systems. So it's one thing building the system and it's another thing like staffing it and like who does the work here. And something that I'm always curious about and I probably have a follow up after as my mind's working, is like is the creative strategist and how I've kind of been seeing the world scope expanding where it starts to think about what does organic first content look like. Because the main question that I am curious about and and Sarah I'll throw it to you first, are these the same skill sets? Like making direct response ads and making things that will do well on organic? Are those the same skill sets in your opinion? Yes or no?

**Sarah Levinger:** Ooh, that's a really good question. Not prepared for this one. Okay. Are they the same skill set? Um, I think on the production side, I'd say yes, 'cause like I said, they're both content. It's just content. If you can make good content, you can get attention and if you can make, you know, good ads, you can get attention. The only difference I would say is aligning with somebody's need to purchase something, that's a different skill set than just creating good content. So in that respect, like content can get you the eyeballs you need and the people that are probably well aligned to your products. Getting them to make an actual like purchase, pushing behavior, that's a different skill set that I think that a lot of people, especially if you're, you know, a direct response marketer, that's where your skill set comes in. The sell though, I will say, which is really interesting, you can get good at content, get good at direct response marketing. The sell is different than it used to be. Like especially in 2025, 2026, it's not nearly as blatant as we saw when UGC started to come up. Like as soon as UGC came into the ecosystem, it was like AIDA, man, every single one of these and they just printed. It was like, holy cow, this is amazing. Now all of a sudden, you can use AIDA and people just scroll right past it as soon as they hear you transition to the next piece of it. So, to Mirella's point, you got to get good at kind of a subtle sell this year. It's all about that like subtlety. Yeah.

**Lee Joselowitz:** I agree with that 100%. It's about it's like believable. I think an ad has to be And I know I talk about trust so much, but I I kind of feel like um trust optimization for me is sort of like the new conversion optimization. Like stop thinking so much about the CTA and the like this is the formula. No, like think think about like how are you building trust with your audience? How are you making something believable? How are you sharing a story? I think that that's like the thinking that needs to kind of change now to be successful. And I think a really strong creative strategist, I agree with all of Sarah's points. I'll also say that I think collaboration is one of the key skills. I don't think that a creative strategist needs or or even is humanly able or possible to do all the things that is expected of a creative strategist today and moving forward. I think that person has to get really good at knowing what they're good at, what they're not good at, who they need to work with, who they need to collaborate with, who they need to bring in to to get the ultimate desired results.

**Mirella Crespi:** Yeah, and if you don't invest in that, you are fighting the hardest fight because it's always just going to be a race to the bottom and it's just going to be about like pricing and offers and discounts and like, you know, you're always trying to go with the DR scarcity, urgency approach to try and sell your product when in reality, if you take a step back and you're like brands that actually have a brand, they can charge like a lot more and they don't have to like work so hard to try and get that sale. Um, I think you you have to do both, right? You have to have a strong direct response strategy to win on paid social, but having um the brand that builds trust and the storytelling and all that will only make your life easier.

**Sarah Levinger:** Yep. 100%. I agree. No notes. I mean the the only thing I will add to like both of these lovely ladies, you guys are so smart. Um, one of the things that I will add is if anybody is metric focused, especially at like the top of the brand, the only thing that you can do is like we talked about before, tag stuff. Just tag everything you've got and show them we've actually got numbers behind this art that we've created. That's about the only way that I've been able to kind of work around it is like, all right, they don't believe that like what they don't believe me when I say that we should run more branded stuff, more focused stuff, then what I need to do is I need to go back and show them that artwork can also perform incredibly well as long as you do it incredibly well. So yeah, tag stuff. Just tag it.

**Lee Joselowitz:** I'd love to add to that whole spiel. I could not agree more and I can also emphasize that some of our best performing ads across our client roster in 2025 were all trend-based. We're all like what is trending on organic and how can we make a a good ad out of that or maybe it's even just the the exact organic post is a good ad in itself. To your point. So I think that that's that's such a huge and valuable point.

**Mirella Crespi:** Yeah, absolutely. Like when we put together concepts and we're presenting to a brand, like here's the research that came from understanding your audience and your competitors, like there is the like what's going on in organic fuse slides where it's just like searching those topics and keywords and just like what are people naturally creating content around because you want to make sure it makes sense and like Lee like you said, there's so much that you can borrow from that in terms of like ideas for hooks for creatives and so on. Um, we have this like massive what we call video techniques database that all it is is like a DM chat with my entire team that every time we see organic content that uses a transition in a cool way, a sound in an interesting way, a new effect, a new this, we like save it and it has this like massive notion um references. So when our creative strategy team is building storyboards, we're literally grabbing the gifts from this techniques database because then it's just like you when you are scripting ads in this mindset of like, okay, I need to write like a strong hook and then I need to agitate the problem and then introduce the product and then add social proof, you can get so stuck in just like like only these visuals, but then if you like sprinkle on top like these techniques from organic, it definitely helps.

**Evan Lee:** So this really gets me thinking about like how to, speaking about systems. So it's one thing building the system and it's another thing like staffing it and like who does the work here. And something that I'm always curious about and I probably have a follow up after as my mind's working, is like is the creative strategist and how I've kind of been seeing the world scope expanding where it starts to think about what does organic first content look like. Because the main question that I am curious about and and Sarah I'll throw it to you first, are these the same skill sets? Like making direct response ads and making things that will do well on organic? Are those the same skill sets in your opinion? Yes or no?

**Sarah Levinger:** Ooh, that's a really good question. Not prepared for this one. Okay. Are they the same skill set? Um, I think on the production side, I'd say yes, 'cause like I said, they're both content. It's just content. If you can make good content, you can get attention and if you can make, you know, good ads, you can get attention. The only difference I would say is aligning with somebody's need to purchase something, that's a different skill set than just creating good content. So in that respect, like content can get you the eyeballs you need and the people that are probably well aligned to your products. Getting them to make an actual like purchase, pushing behavior, that's a different skill set that I think that a lot of people, especially if you're, you know, a direct response marketer, that's where your skill set comes in. The sell though, I will say, which is really interesting, you can get good at content, get good at direct response marketing. The sell is different than it used to be. Like especially in 2025, 2026, it's not nearly as blatant as we saw when UGC started to come up. Like as soon as UGC came into the ecosystem, it was like AIDA, man, every single one of these and they just printed. It was like, holy cow, this is amazing. Now all of a sudden, you can use AIDA and people just scroll right past it as soon as they hear you transition to the next piece of it. So, to Mirella's point, you got to get good at kind of a subtle sell this year. It's all about that like subtlety. Yeah.

**Lee Joselowitz:** I agree with that 100%. It's about it's like believable. I think an ad has to be And I know I talk about trust so much, but I I kind of feel like um trust optimization for me is sort of like the new conversion optimization. Like stop thinking so much about the CTA and the like this is the formula. No, like think think about like how are you building trust with your audience? How are you making something believable? How are you sharing a story? I think that that's like the thinking that needs to kind of change now to be successful. And I think a really strong creative strategist, I agree with all of Sarah's points. I'll also say that I think collaboration is one of the key skills. I don't think that a creative strategist needs or or even is humanly able or possible to do all the things that is expected of a creative strategist today and moving forward. I think that person has to get really good at knowing what they're good at, what they're not good at, who they need to work with, who they need to collaborate with, who they need to bring in to to get the ultimate desired results.

**Mirella Crespi:** Yeah, and if you don't invest in that, you are fighting the hardest fight because it's always just going to be a race to the bottom and it's just going to be about like pricing and offers and discounts and like, you know, you're always trying to go with the DR scarcity, urgency approach to try and sell your product when in reality, if you take a step back and you're like brands that actually have a brand, they can charge like a lot more and they don't have to like work so hard to try and get that sale. Um, I think you you have to do both, right? You have to have a strong direct response strategy to win on paid social, but having um the brand that builds trust and the storytelling and all that will only make your life easier.

**Sarah Levinger:** Yep. 100%. I agree. No notes. I mean the the only thing I will add to like both of these lovely ladies, you guys are so smart. Um, one of the things that I will add is if anybody is metric focused, especially at like the top of the brand, the only thing that you can do is like we talked about before, tag stuff. Just tag everything you've got and show them we've actually got numbers behind this art that we've created. That's about the only way that I've been able to kind of work around it is like, all right, they don't believe that like what they don't believe me when I say that we should run more branded stuff, more focused stuff, then what I need to do is I need to go back and show them that artwork can also perform incredibly well as long as you do it incredibly well. So yeah, tag stuff. Just tag it.

**Lee Joselowitz:** I'd love to add to that whole spiel. I could not agree more and I can also emphasize that some of our best performing ads across our client roster in 2025 were all trend-based. We're all like what is trending on organic and how can we make a a good ad out of that or maybe it's even just the the exact organic post is a good ad in itself. To your point. So I think that that's that's such a huge and valuable point.

**Mirella Crespi:** Yeah, absolutely. Like when we put together concepts and we're presenting to a brand, like here's the research that came from understanding your audience and your competitors, like there is the like what's going on in organic fuse slides where it's just like searching those topics and keywords and just like what are people naturally creating content around because you want to make sure it makes sense and like Lee like you said, there's so much that you can borrow from that in terms of like ideas for hooks for creatives and so on. Um, we have this like massive what we call video techniques database that all it is is like a DM chat with my entire team that every time we see organic content that uses a transition in a cool way, a sound in an interesting way, a new effect, a new this, we like save it and it has this like massive notion um references. So when our creative strategy team is building storyboards, we're literally grabbing the gifts from this techniques database because then it's just like you when you are scripting ads in this mindset of like, okay, I need to write like a strong hook and then I need to agitate the problem and then introduce the product and then add social proof, you can get so stuck in just like like only these visuals, but then if you like sprinkle on top like these techniques from organic, it definitely helps.

**Evan Lee:** So this really gets me thinking about like how to, speaking about systems. So it's one thing building the system and it's another thing like staffing it and like who does the work here. And something that I'm always curious about and I probably have a follow up after as my mind's working, is like is the creative strategist and how I've kind of been seeing the world scope expanding where it starts to think about what does organic first content look like. Because the main question that I am curious about and and Sarah I'll throw it to you first, are these the same skill sets? Like making direct response ads and making things that will do well on organic? Are those the same skill sets in your opinion? Yes or no?

**Sarah Levinger:** Ooh, that's a really good question. Not prepared for this one. Okay. Are they the same skill set? Um, I think on the production side, I'd say yes, 'cause like I said, they're both content. It's just content. If you can make good content, you can get attention and if you can make, you know, good ads, you can get attention. The only difference I would say is aligning with somebody's need to purchase something, that's a different skill set than just creating good content. So in that respect, like content can get you the eyeballs you need and the people that are probably well aligned to your products. Getting them to make an actual like purchase, pushing behavior, that's a different skill set that I think that a lot of people, especially if you're, you know, a direct response marketer, that's where your skill set comes in. The sell though, I will say, which is really interesting, you can get good at content, get good at direct response marketing. The sell is different than it used to be. Like especially in 2025, 2026, it's not nearly as blatant as we saw when UGC started to come up. Like as soon as UGC came into the ecosystem, it was like AIDA, man, every single one of these and they just printed. It was like, holy cow, this is amazing. Now all of a sudden, you can use AIDA and people just scroll right past it as soon as they hear you transition to the next piece of it. So, to Mirella's point, you got to get good at kind of a subtle sell this year. It's all about that like subtlety. Yeah.

**Lee Joselowitz:** I agree with that 100%. It's about it's like believable. I think an ad has to be And I know I talk about trust so much, but I I kind of feel like um trust optimization for me is sort of like the new conversion optimization. Like stop thinking so much about the CTA and the like this is the formula. No, like think think about like how are you building trust with your audience? How are you making something believable? How are you sharing a story? I think that that's like the thinking that needs to kind of change now to be successful. And I think a really strong creative strategist, I agree with all of Sarah's points. I'll also say that I think collaboration is one of the key skills. I don't think that a creative strategist needs or or even is humanly able or possible to do all the things that is expected of a creative strategist today and moving forward. I think that person has to get really good at knowing what they're good at, what they're not good at, who they need to work with, who they need to collaborate with, who they need to bring in to to get the ultimate desired results.

**Mirella Crespi:** Yeah, and if you don't invest in that, you are fighting the hardest fight because it's always just going to be a race to the bottom and it's just going to be about like pricing and offers and discounts and like, you know, you're always trying to go with the DR scarcity, urgency approach to try and sell your product when in reality, if you take a step back and you're like brands that actually have a brand, they can charge like a lot more and they don't have to like work so hard to try and get that sale. Um, I think you you have to do both, right? You have to have a strong direct response strategy to win on paid social, but having um the brand that builds trust and the storytelling and all that will only make your life easier.

**Sarah Levinger:** Yep. 100%. I agree. No notes. I mean the the only thing I will add to like both of these lovely ladies, you guys are so smart. Um, one of the things that I will add is if anybody is metric focused, especially at like the top of the brand, the only thing that you can do is like we talked about before, tag stuff. Just tag everything you've got and show them we've actually got numbers behind this art that we've created. That's about the only way that I've been able to kind of work around it is like, all right, they don't believe that like what they don't believe me when I say that we should run more branded stuff, more focused stuff, then what I need to do is I need to go back and show them that artwork can also perform incredibly well as long as you do it incredibly well. So yeah, tag stuff. Just tag it.

**Lee Joselowitz:** I'd love to add to that whole spiel. I could not agree more and I can also emphasize that some of our best performing ads across our client roster in 2025 were all trend-based. We're all like what is trending on organic and how can we make a a good ad out of that or maybe it's even just the the exact organic post is a good ad in itself. To your point. So I think that that's that's such a huge and valuable point.

**Mirella Crespi:** Yeah, absolutely. Like when we put together concepts and we're presenting to a brand, like here's the research that came from understanding your audience and your competitors, like there is the like what's going on in organic fuse slides where it's just like searching those topics and keywords and just like what are people naturally creating content around because you want to make sure it makes sense and like Lee like you said, there's so much that you can borrow from that in terms of like ideas for hooks for creatives and so on. Um, we have this like massive what we call video techniques database that all it is is like a DM chat with my entire team that every time we see organic content that uses a transition in a cool way, a sound in an interesting way, a new effect, a new this, we like save it and it