Hit a $90 CPA, then scale everything that holds it.
Start from what's already working, find what customers want that nobody is saying, and build better versions of the best ads. Fifteen new ads a week. One number decides what lives: a purchase CPA of $90 or better.
Every ad in the category. Every Reddit comment.
Best adsThe controls in the wildAds advertisers have paid to run for months; TikTok videos with their own sales.
Missing anglesWhat men want that no ad saysBloodwork as proof. The walking wallet. The hollow T booster.
BuildThe top 15, made betterEach a real control, pushed 10–15% further.
BenchOther angles and moonshotsReady to fill any slot that opens.
The KPI$90 CPA or betterThe only test of success. Everything else shapes the next ad.
Controls$90 CPA or less: keep, scale, challengeRuns while it holds. Challengers add to it, never replace it.
Promising$91–$135The angle is worth playing with: a substantially different ad on it.
Kill pileOver $135: offThe slot goes to the bench.
Within a few weeks, 10–13 of each week's 15 are variants of controls and 2–5 come from the bench. Scale controls, then run the bench.
1Research: what's working and what's missing
The Ad Library shows no spend, so the evidence is behaviour. An ad still live after six months is one somebody keeps paying for. On TikTok, each video's own 30-day sales. Every ad in the category was broken down and grouped by the idea it runs on.
Go deeper: every ad we pulled · formats · advertisers · TikTok · what men say · missing angles
The best ads: still running after six months
TikTok: the videos that sell
2The missing angles
I put what men say in 230,014 comments against what all 1,556 on-topic ads actually say. What's missing does two jobs.
| What the comparison shows | What we make |
|---|---|
| A strong control leaves an objection unanswered | A variant that adds the answer. Bloodwork proof inside the honest review. Balanced minerals, not megadoses, inside the benefit static. |
| A motivation men keep raising is barely in the ads | A new concept for the moonshot pool. No ashwagandha flatness. The walking wallet. The new dad running on no sleep. Lifting into your 50s without getting hurt. |
A theme becomes a test only when our product can credibly answer it. All 17 missing angles, with the men's words and the nearest existing ads →
3The top 15: our presumed controls
These are the 15 competitor ads that show what's working. They start as our presumed controls. We make our own version of each, aiming to be 10% better by working in the missing angles from the research.
Five picks (marked) depend on a real bundle, bonus, ingredient or demonstration. If our product doesn't have it, the slot goes to the bench.
An example: Day 27, with real lab results
Their ad, as it runs
Our version (mock-up)
"Day 27 of taking this"
HappySupp. A man on his couch mocking the hype and giving an honest account. 591 days and still running; the same script is TikTok's most-viewed video at 39.1M.
What men keep saying"Without the blood work to back this up, then this is all in your head." r/trtThe change
Our own actor and product, same setup and script. Under "Day 27 of taking this": (Real lab results included). He still says he can feel the difference, and now he shows it: "I can feel it in my body, and I can see it in my bloodwork," with the lab screenshots on screen. No "my testosterone went from X to Y" claim, which Meta won't take.
What the result makes me do- ≤ $90: it's a control. It keeps running and scaling, and its next version is an optimization.
- Promising: the lab-proof angle gets a substantially different ad.
- Kill pile: it comes off, and the slot goes to the bench.
4The KPI: $90 CPA or better
We choose one success criterion. Here the client gave it: a $90 cost per purchase. Every other number gives us opportunities to test our way to it, but a strong hook rate on a failing ad is a failing ad.
At or under $90, the ad is a control. Above it, the ad hasn't done the job.
Hook rate, hold rate, click-through and conversion rate tell us where an ad is close and what to try next. They never keep an ad alive.
5Three piles
An ad earns continued spend. An idea earns another production slot. They're separate decisions.
It keeps running as long as it holds $90, and spend rises while it does. Its challenger is an extra shot at a better ad, not a replacement. Its next creative is an optimization: a stronger opening, clearer proof, better pacing.
Above target, but the angle is worth playing with. We don't optimize this ad. We take the angle and make something substantially different with it: what would it look like as a TED-talk ad? The original ad usually stops after its first week, though a judgment call can extend it. For example, an ad that opened at $125 and ended its first five days at $92 can earn five more while Facebook finds its audience.
Or no real improvement. The ad comes off and its angle leaves the current queue. That doesn't mean the angle can never work. We have stronger candidates waiting, so the slot goes to the bench.
6The week
Friday to Friday. Weekends are where consumer performance happens, so every cohort launches Friday with its weekend spend set. Week one is the exception: the first 15 go live on a Monday.
Launch the new cohort. Set spend going into the weekend.
Make sure everything is delivering. Let it run; only something atrocious gets touched.
Read Friday to Wednesday against the KPI. Sort into the three piles and decide next week's creative.
Build it. Friday, launch it.
7Scale controls, then run the bench
Failures fall away fast, and many go after week one. Controls accumulate, because the limit is fifteen new ads a week, not the number of ads running. Within a few weeks most of production goes into variants of controls. The rest goes to the bench: the remaining control families, the missing angles and the moonshots.
An illustrative mix; each Wednesday's read sets the real one.
Browse the full inventory: every group, every ad
Click a group to see each idea in it and every ad, with its control outlined. Click an ad for its breakdown.
8Moonshots
The bench holds the presumed controls that didn't make the first run. But the research also turned up new ideas: conversations men are having that no ad in the category is part of. We mix these in as we go, as we find which of the bench's controls aren't playing well.
"Stop being the walking wallet."
"What I feel is I'm the unseen glue that keeps my family together... No one thanks me for anything it's just expected." 6,206 upvotes, r/AskMen
"Is your T booster leaving you hollow and empty?"
"It slowly sucked my emotions from me and left me feeling hollow and empty." r/Supplements
"Are you shriveling your nuts?"
"Does it shrink the balls badly that's the one thing scaring me from starting" r/trt
All 17 missing angles from the research, with the men's words and the nearest existing ads →