Great creative might stop the scroll, but turning that attention into meaningful commercial results takes more than a compelling image or clever video. Without the right media strategy, intelligent distribution and a willingness to test, even the strongest campaigns can fall flat.
Drawing on Launch’s work with lifestyle brand St Eval, Rhianna Williams, Paid Media Manager at Launch, explores why creative excellence and media performance should never be treated as separate disciplines, how structured experimentation can unlock the potential of both, and what it really takes to turn audience engagement into measurable business growth.
Rhianna Williams
Digital ad campaigns demand serious craft, time, and budget. Teams spend weeks sharpening messaging, directing video and photo shoots, and building or redefining brand identity.
So when sales stall, the creative is often the first thing blamed. The visuals weren't appealing enough, the message didn't land, the work failed to resonate.
More often, the real issue lies elsewhere. Creative, whether static or video, only performs when media strategy gives it the right environment to succeed. Even brilliant work will underdeliver if it is starved of reach, deployed without systematic testing, or sends people to a fragmented landing page.
Put simply, neither creative nor media drives scalable performance on its own.
Great creative needs sound technical deployment, and a strong media strategy needs the right creative to turn reach into lasting commercial impact. Underpinning both is structured, and ongoing, experimentation
This formula was central to our work with St Eval, helping the brand scale its ecommerce activity through the fiercely competitive golden quarter in 2025, and beyond.
Many consumer brands have a wealth of well-crafted creative, both video and static, ready for campaign use.
At the same time, they have a business problem that their media strategy has been created to overcome. For robust ecommerce brands during a peak trading period it is often maintaining existing while attracting new customers.
For St Eval this meant going 'toe to toe' on a strategy to acquire new, high-value customers ahead of the critical Q4 period. Moving from a 60/40 Google-first split to a 60/40 social-first strategy, redirected media investment from bottom-funnel capture into social-first discovery to generate new demand and measure the lift it sent through organic and direct channels.
It sounds simple. But, to build meaningful consumer connections (and drive sales) with any new structured media strategy relies on making sure that content resonates with the target audience.
This is where structured experimentation comes in.
It helps marketing teams and agencies understand how each format performs, where the distribution of creative needs adjusting, and, most importantly, how to scale creative further and reduce over-reliance on a single asset type.
For St Eval, we tested image and video assets against each other at every stage of the funnel. First of all, we grouped them in the same ad sets, then isolated top performers to compare spend allocation and creative efficiency.
The data showed that the budget was skewing heavily toward video. We quickly separated these top performers and rebalanced spend toward the remaining assets, allowing static images to get a better test, which gave them a fairer trial with the social platform algorithms. Performance evened out across both formats, showing that images can compete with video when given equal exposure.
The tests also revealed that video drove purchases across the whole funnel, not just at the top. We responded by making sure a variety of video content was available for every stage as the period progressed, focusing on creative diversity to showcase the products, the feelings they evoke, social proofing and more.
A major challenge in digital marketing is translating non-visual or sensory product value into digital ad formats.
Systematic experimentation can also test how different creative assets evoke emotion, build trust, and communicate intangible brand qualities.
St Eval’s creative strategy cannot rely on sensory demonstration alone; it must evoke atmosphere and provenance. By testing visual assets, such as coastal landscapes, natural ingredients, and immersive scenery, ongoing experimentation identifies what resonates across diverse audience profiles.
Establishing a responsive reporting cycle is also vital.
By reviewing data on a week-on-week basis a team can continuously adapt the content and creative assets to meet the needs of the target audience. This includes honing in on top performing creative angles, whilst introducing new concepts as spend scales.
It doesn’t end there.
Structured media distribution: Giving creative the environment to scale
Experimentation only pays off if winning creative reaches the right audience. Structured distribution pairs specific assets with the right campaign objectives and placement formats.
For St Eval, shifting allocation toward Paid Social discovery created fresh demand early. It expanded brand reach and gave high-performing assets the budget runway to scale before competitive auctions escalated.
To harness further insight we reviewed how paid social influenced the wider direct-to-consumer ecosystem including organic traffic, direct visits and branded search demand.
This meant that Launch could unlock invaluable insight on how social activity was driving revenue and sessions across the whole funnel, not just inside the ad platform. For example, reviewing insights across paid channels collectively to better monitor the wider impact of increased discovery activity.
By tracking these connected signals, the full commercial impact of investment could be seen, which enabled smarter decisions about budget allocation.
Full-funnel measurement: Connecting creative resonance to commercial return
To prove commercial value, it is essential to look beyond platform-level metrics. Evaluating creative impact across the entire digital ecosystem ensures that initial engagement translates into commercial intent and long-term business growth.
Tracking connected signals – such as direct visits, branded search lift, and organic discovery – reveals the true halo effect of upper-funnel creative activity. Aligning ad messaging with cohesive landing page experiences completes the journey, converting browser curiosity into sustained commercial success.
For St Eval the results speak for themselves
When creative craft and media strategy work together, campaigns get the reach, structure and runway to deliver sustained commercial impact. The magic ingredient is ongoing experimentation.
In the core Q4 trading window, revenue increased 490% and total sales volume 545% year on year. Black Friday and Boxing Day were two of the strongest single trading days in the brand's 30-year history, and 2025 was the first year DTC revenue overtook B2B.
Full-year performance (2025 vs 2024):
- Overall revenue: up 163%, against a 100% target.
- New customer acquisition: up 125%, against a 100% target.
- Overall conversion rate: up 68%, against a 50% target.
Great creative, great media and robust testing: that is what makes ads stop the scroll and lift the bottom line.
