Firas Balaffou

Playing eCommerce like it’s a sport

[Firas Balaffou @BalaffouFiras]

We just encountered a serious glitch with Meta’s manual bidding. Our TROAS campaigns suddenly dropped to 0.001 TROAS.

[Sean Frank @Seanfrank]

Try to do more hard things.
Overload yourself. Max out. Burn out.

You will rise to whatever the situation calls for.

[Olly Hudson @oliverwhudson]

We ran a multi-cell conversion lift test with Meta.

Partnership ads alongside BAU creative vs BAU only.

800 incremental conversions vs 520
CPA: $25.63 vs $39.34
ROAS: over 10x stronger

One change. Identity layer added.

Here's why it works.

When you run an ad from a creator's identity, Meta doesn't treat it as a variant of your existing creative. It reads it as a signal from a different entity. That unlocks a new audience pool the brand account can't reach on its own.

Same hook × different creator = new creative
Same format × different identity = new creative
Same product × different persona = new creative

Most brands running creator content never get here. They're paying for UGC, watching CTR tick up, and missing the actual mechanism.

Identity is the multiplier at the top of the creative diversity pyramid. And it's the first lever to pull when first-time impression ratio drops below 10%.

We've put together our full Partnership Ads Playbook covering how to find and brief the right creators, how to structure the workflow inside Ads Manager, how to use FTIR as a leading indicator, and when to pull partnership ads as your first response to audience saturation.

Retweet this post and comment PLAYBOOK and I'll send it over.

[Firas Balaffou @BalaffouFiras]

@oliverwhudson Playbook

[Firas Balaffou @BalaffouFiras]

@blvckledge @ChihebZaghdoudi

[Firas Balaffou @BalaffouFiras]

@blvckledge @ChihebZaghdoudi

[Owen @MoreThanMasses]

What a good ecom creative strategist workflow looks like for a 9-figure brand:

Sunday evening:
- Doomscroll on Facebook/instagram and save new ad concepts that are scaling with high engagement

Monday
- Go to Atria/adspy/whatever and do heavy spying
- Take a walk outside.
- Come back and plan out the 8-12 concepts you plan on doing that week based on the above
- Write concept 1 (script, hooks, storyboard, work with UGC coordinator to get assets made)
- Lunch (light slopbowl or salad or something)
- Write concept 2
- Go to the gym
- Eat dinner, maybe write concept 3 or doomscroll before bed again (saving all ads/ideas)

Tuesday
- Basically repeat all the above + make sure editors are working on outstanding ads

Wednesday (assume all ad drafts due this day)
- Ruthless QA on every single ad delivered. Even the best editors make mistakes/can be better
- QA should take 15-20 minutes on a 3-5 minute ad. Sometimes longer. Should be a good 2-3+ hours of QA. Real work.
- Finish all QA by noon
- Lunchmaxx
- Afternoon, write another concept or 2

Thursday (assume this is launch day)
- Make sure final ads are shipped and coordinate with media buyers to ensure launches
- Write more concepts (2-3)

Friday
- Write more concepts (2-3)
- Get drunk or socialize or something (important for creative inspo)

Saturday
- Nurse hangover
- Go to gym
- Doomscroll for more inspo
- Eek out 1 concept

Sunday (REPEAT)

The big takeaways here are I didn't mention Clawdbot, Claude, ai automations, or any of that shit. This is not rocket science. Find what's working, be creative with new ideas/concepts, and put in the real man hours to actually generate & edit scripts, do QA, and coordinate launches. Obviously leverage ai for script assistance, but don't skip the real work. If you rely on simply pressing buttons on automated systems, quality drops off a cliff, net new creative concepts fall, and ad account efficiency tanks.

To anyone who has read this far: if you're an A-player creative strategist who is ready to actually put in the work, hit my DMs or reply here. I don't want glorified button pushers. I want guys ready to sit down at their computer for 20-30+ hours a week and follow through with the workflow above. Expect pay in the $5-15k+/mo range based on performance.

Cheers and happy advertising

[Firas Balaffou @BalaffouFiras]

@jspujji AI

[Firas Balaffou @BalaffouFiras]

@dtcprophet @andrewfoxwell @ChihebZaghdoudi

[Firas Balaffou @BalaffouFiras]

@MrYoniLevy @MrYoniLevy did this rollout start taking place?

[Firas Balaffou @BalaffouFiras]

@runtraffic Insanely good!

[Firas Balaffou @BalaffouFiras]

@EddChalk Clout

[Edd Chalk @EddChalk]

My OpenClaw ships banger ad briefs while I sleep.

Production-ready briefs. Scored. Validated through a QA skill tree.

And I am going to show you how to set it up in return for a little bit of clout

Here's what's actually running while I'm asleep.

OpenClaw has a skill graph. Three AI agents connected in sequence — each one feeds the next, and nothing moves forward until it passes.

The first agent is pure research. It's scraping the Meta Ad Library pulling 5–10 active competitor ads, extracting repeating hooks, mapping visual patterns, documenting copy structures, and analysing CTA approaches (offer vs urgency vs curiosity).

At the same time it's running Golden Pain Extraction — pulling verbatim emotional language from Amazon 3-star reviews, Reddit threads, TikTok comments on competitor videos, and customer service logs. Not summaries. Exact words real customers used. Each pain gets tagged and mapped to one of the 8 Life Force drives.

Then it runs an asset audit — lifestyle product shots, founder content, UGC, testimonials, before/afters. Everything gets catalogued.

All of that gets compiled into a research document. Competitor analysis. Golden Pains mapped to LFE8. Dream outcomes. Available assets. Recommended angles.

That document feeds the second agent — the brief writer.

It builds static briefs: 3 copy variations per brief, each with Headline + Subline + CTA. Left side: 3 USPs. Right side: Feature → Benefit mapping x3. Visual direction, do's and don'ts, product URL, primary image, drive assets — all included.

It builds video briefs: 3 hook variations per brief, each broken into Text Hook + Visual Hook + Audio Hook + Why It Works.

Then 3 full timed body scripts — [0–3s] Hook → [3–8s] Setup → [8–15s] Product → [15–18s] Proof → [18–20s] CTA.

The 3-Second Formula is embedded at the writing stage. Second 0–1: Triple Stack (visual hook, text hook, audio hook firing simultaneously). Second 1–3: The Promise. Second 3–5: The Rehook.

If the structure doesn't hit those timings, it doesn't get written.

Every brief then hits the QA agent. This is where most of them die.

Validation checklist: 10 Golden Rules scored out of 10.

Minimum 7 to pass.

Score below 7? It doesn't get sent to me. It gets rejected back to the brief writer with specific fix notes.

Not a soft pass. A directed rewrite. The loop runs until it passes.

Only when a brief clears every node does it hit my Telegram.

6 production-ready briefs. 3 static. 3 video. Validated hooks. Fresh angles built from real market intelligence.

Ready for designer handoff → testing → iteration → scale.

No docs opened. No prompts written. No hours wasted.

I've scaled 50+ brands to 7 and 8 figures at MHI Media.

I mapped the full skill tree — every agent, every node, every framework, every validation gate.

Like + Repost + Comment "CLOUT" and I'll send it over.
(Follow me so I can DM you)

Screenshot not revelant but the last 30 days aint too bad.

[Firas Balaffou @BalaffouFiras]

@kamal_razzak Camera

[Kamal Razzak @kamal_razzak]

My clients cannot stop making money because of one ad format and one checklist.

I built a prompt system that replaces scripts with questions designed to pull out stories, USPs, and emotional triggers without the founder having to think about selling.

The questions do the heavy lifting. The founder just talks.

A single two hour session using this system produces over 100 clips because every question opens a different angle, a different hook, a different reason for someone to stop scrolling.

I have used this exact framework across more than 50 brands that I have scaled to seven and eight figures at MHI Media.

And the results are always the same.

Founder content shot this way outperforms UGC, outperforms polished studio creative, and compounds across paid and organic in ways that no other format can touch.

I am giving the full prompt list and the technical shoot checklist away for free.

Like+Repost+Comment “CAMERA” and I’ll send it to you
(Just follow me so I can message you)

[Firas Balaffou @BalaffouFiras]

@buffalofink @spencepawliw Thanks!! Actually seeing a bit similar behavior: the more spend the ad gets, the higher nv% gets, and the more stable performance starts to be

[Firas Balaffou @BalaffouFiras]

@buffalofink @spencepawliw @buffalofink did u see a pattern on those ads that they have a much higher %NV on northbeam ?

[Firas Balaffou @BalaffouFiras]

@drewfallon12 @ChereneAubert Petlab is one of them , started heavily with DR and got acquired recently by BC Partners

[DTC Midas @DTCMidas]

The difference between a good and a bad creative strategist.

I've hired and fired a lot of creative strategists over the years.

The biggest difference is that the best ones obsess over every single detail, and the bad ones think their job ends after they write a script.

Bad creative strategists:

They do some surface-level reddit research → deliver a Google Doc with a script and maybe a atria link with reference video → send it to the editor with minimal context → launch the video when the editor is done → blame bad performance on "the edit wasn't good enough."

They treat their job as purely ideation & scriptwriting.

Once the script is written, they're done.

They don't watch the final edit closely, and when an ad doesn't perform, they point fingers at the editor or the media buyer.

Good creative strategists:

They obsess over every detail of the final product.

Watch hours of content that the customer would also consume to understand what’s going in the their customers brain from the inside out.

The hook - not just what's said, but HOW it's said, the framing, the cuts in the first 3 seconds, the exact moment the text appears.

The text placement - does it appear too early? Too late? Is it readable? Does it complement or distract from what's being said?

The number of cuts - is the pacing too slow? Too fast? Are we losing people because the pacing is off.

The b-roll - does it reinforce the message or just fill space?

They provide detailed, specific feedback to editors.

Not just "make it better" but "cut this section down by 2 seconds, show text in hook 2 sec later, add this exact testimonial here."

They own the end product.

If an ad doesn't perform, they don't blame the editor or the media
buyer.

They look at what went wrong, learn from it and apply the learnings the next batch

If you're hiring a creative strategist

Look for someone who obsesses over the final product.

Someone who watches the ad 20 times before they launch and someone who takes ownership of performance, not just the script.

[Firas Balaffou @BalaffouFiras]

@buffalofink @JemBourouhDE 🐐🐐

[Firas Balaffou @BalaffouFiras]

@runtraffic Sick ! Did u ever scaled this type of ads on YT ?