User-generated content has become a powerful part of performance marketing. 

In fact, according to Bazaarvoice's 2025 consumer research, 75% of shoppers find UGC useful when making purchase decisions.

Yet putting a creator in front of a camera does not guarantee clicks, leads, or purchases.

A user-generated video can feel authentic, earn views, and entertain your target audience while still producing weak conversion metrics.

From our experience, this gap usually starts before production.

Creators may receive detailed instructions about video length, product shots, and content formats. However, they get little context about what should move the customer toward action.

This makes the quality of your UGC brief critical to campaign performance. 

In this guide, we'll break down how to create UGC briefs that help creators turn attention into measurable action.

Why Most UGC Briefs Fail to Produce Business Results

Before we get into what a strong creative brief looks like, let’s understand where UGC ad briefs go wrong.

A brief can look detailed on paper and still leave a creator without the direction needed to produce effective UGC ad creative.

Deliverables Dominate the Brief

Many ad briefs are packed with production requirements. You might specify:

• Three user-generated videos
• A 9:16 aspect ratio
• A 30-second limit
• Two revision rounds
• Several asset formats

These details keep production organized. However, they do not tell the creator what needs to persuade the viewer.

A creator can meet every deadline and deliver polished video content while the UGC ad creative still falls short of your campaign goals. The brief has covered production, but it has left the strategy unclear.

Creators Receive Execution Details Without Strategic Context

Creators are usually told what to make. But they get much less context about:

• Who needs convincing
• Why that person might buy
• What could hold them back

Creators themselves are asking for more context. 

According to Influencer's 2025 Creator Perspectives research, 64% of creators want deeper insight into brands' overall marketing goals so they can better align their content strategies. 

Even an experienced creator cannot infer your full creative strategy from a list of deliverables.

For example, “Create a 30-second product demo” explains the production task. It says nothing about why the product should matter to the viewer or what could influence their decision.

When that context is missing, creators have to fill in the strategic gaps themselves.

Every Creator Interprets the Campaign Differently

Those gaps become more visible when several creators work on the same ad campaigns.

One creator may lead with price. Another may focus on convenience. A third may make a completely different product promise. Hooks and CTAs can vary just as widely.

Each piece may work on its own, but the campaign can start pulling in different directions. 

As per our experience, this makes it harder to maintain clear brand positioning across your social media campaigns.

Define the Customer Decision Before Drafting the UGC Brief

Before you open a creative brief, get clear on the customer decision you want the content to influence.

At 9AM, our team usually starts with three important questions: 

• Who are we trying to persuade? 
• What is holding them back? 
• What decision do we want them to make?

Below, we break down each question and what you need to clarify before drafting the brief. 

1. Identify the Person the Content Needs to Persuade

“People interested in skincare” is too broad to guide a strong creative strategy. You need to know which customer segment you want to reach and where they are in the buying journey.

This context matters because the same message will not resonate equally with every customer. 

Adobe and Forrester's 2025 research found that 50% of B2B buyers expect mostly or fully personalized content during product discovery, rising to 54% at the purchase stage. 

Among consumers, the figures rise from 31% during discovery to 40% at purchase. 

So, we suggest asking: 

• How familiar are they with your brand or product line?
• Are they aware of the problem your product solves?
• Are they actively comparing options?
• How strong is their purchase intent?
• Where are they likely to encounter the content?

Remember, a first-time viewer scrolling through Instagram Reels has a different level of context than someone who has already visited your product page. That difference should shape how you approach the campaign.

2. Identify the Barrier Delaying Action

Next, figure out what is keeping that customer from moving forward.

It could be price, lack of trust, product confusion, fear of poor results, or reluctance to switch from a familiar brand.

We recommend choosing one primary barrier for each creative concept. We have seen that trying to answer five objections in one short video usually leaves every point underdeveloped.

For example, a shopper may already like your eco-friendly water bottle but wonder whether it keeps drinks cold all day. That concern matters more than repeating every product feature.

3. Define the Decision the Content Should Support

Finally, decide what you want the viewer to do after engaging with the content.

This decision could be:

• Make a first purchase
• Start a free trial
• Book a demo
• Install an app
• Submit a lead form

These actions require different levels of persuasion. A free app download usually needs less commitment than a high-value purchase.

Once you define the decision, the rest of your creative strategy has a much clearer starting point.

Steps to Translate Customer Strategy Into a UGC Creator Brief

Once you know who you want to persuade and what decision you want to influence, the next step is translating that strategy into instructions a creator can act on. 

We recommend including the following five elements:

1. State the Campaign Objective and Primary Metric 

Start with the business result you want the content to support. Then connect that result to one primary KPI.

For example:

• Conversion campaign: Drive first-time purchases, measured by conversion rate
• Lead generation campaign: Generate qualified leads, measured by cost per lead
• App campaign: Drive installs, measured by cost per install

You can include supporting conversion metrics such as click-through rates or ROAS. However, keep one metric as the priority.

The creator does not need access to your full ad accounts or reporting setup. They should understand what success means for the content they are producing.

2. Define the Message Viewers Should Remember 

Next, give the creator one clear takeaway.

For example, if you sell an eco-friendly water bottle, your core message might be:

“This bottle keeps your drink cold throughout the workday without relying on disposable plastic.”

Then add two or three supporting points that strengthen that message. These could cover the material, insulation, or ease of cleaning.

Insider tip: Avoid turning the brief into a product catalog. Too many features compete for attention and make the main message harder to remember.

3. Specify the Proof the Creator Should Show 

A product claim becomes more convincing when viewers can see why they should believe it.

Depending on the product and campaign, that proof could include:

• A product demonstration
• A personal experience
• A side-by-side comparison
• Customer testimonials
• A visible result
• Relevant supporting evidence

This kind of proof can influence buying behavior. According to Sprout Social, 64% of consumers say genuine reviews are the type of influencer content most likely to compel them to buy.

So, match the proof to the concern you identified earlier. If customers question durability, show the product being used. If they doubt the outcome, demonstrate the result where possible.

This gives authentic content something concrete to communicate instead of relying on broad claims.

4. Set the Creative and Compliance Boundaries

Your creator should know which parts of the brief are fixed and where they have room to make the content their own.

When our 9AM team works with UGC creators, we clearly define requirements such as: 

• Required product mentions
• Approved claims
• Restricted words or claims
• FTC compliance and disclosure
• Brand voice
• Product visibility
• Relevant brand guidelines or visual guidelines

Then identify what the creator can personalize. This might include their wording, filming location, storytelling style, or delivery.

Clear boundaries protect your brand positioning while leaving enough room for the creator’s natural voice.

5. Clarify the Next Action

The customer action you defined earlier now needs to become a clear CTA in the brief.

Specify the CTA wording, offer, and destination. You should also explain when it needs to appear and whether it should be spoken, shown on screen, or both.

The CTA should fit the viewer’s level of intent. Someone discovering your product for the first time may need a softer next step than someone who is already comparing options.

For paid ad campaigns, make sure the spoken CTA also makes sense with the landing page and offer. A clear handoff between the UGC ad creative and destination makes the customer journey easier to follow.

Read Next: Mastering Landing Page Alignment: Speed, Scent, and Social Proof

Adapt the UGC Brief to the Creator and Platform

A strong brief should stay consistent on strategy while giving each creator room to work in the format they already do well.

A testimonial-style creator may be strongest with personal stories. A demonstration-led creator may perform better with product use cases. Comedy, educational, and lifestyle creators will each need a different execution style.

The core message can stay the same, but the delivery should fit the creator.

Platform behavior matters too. TikTok, Instagram, and Facebook do not behave the same way. Pacing, hook clarity, video length, and CTA timing should reflect how people consume content in each setting.

For example, Meta reports that Reels campaigns using 9:16 video with audio and key messages in the safe zone saw a 34.5% lower cost per result than campaigns using image ads on Reels. 

Across the campaign, keep the core message, required proof, and main customer concern consistent. Give creators more flexibility with hooks, storytelling, and filming style.

We see this as controlled variation. The strategy stays intact, while the execution gives you enough range to learn what actually performs.

Improve Future UGC Ad Briefs With Performance Data

A UGC brief should get smarter after every campaign. Once your ads are live, performance data can show which creative decisions deserve another round and which ones need to change.

1. Evaluate Creative Performance Beyond Views

Views can tell you whether people watched, but they cannot tell you the full story about business impact.

Look at signals across the customer journey, including:

• Hook retention
• Click-through rates
• Landing page conversion
• CPA
• ROAS
• Comment intent

A user-generated video could earn strong watch time but send very few people to your landing page. Another might attract fewer views while producing more conversions at a lower CPA.

This is why we prefer to judge creative against the campaign goal rather than attention alone.

2. Identify Which Briefing Inputs Influenced Performance

Next, look beyond which creator or video “won.” Ask what was different about the direction behind each asset.

Compare the objection addressed, proof format, hook direction, creator format, and CTA performance. Creative analytics can help you spot patterns across a larger set of UGC ad creative.

Be careful about assigning all success or failure to the creator. A strong creator can receive weak direction, while a clear brief can make execution easier.

The useful question is: Which creative decisions are consistently connected with stronger performance?

3. Feed Campaign Learnings Into the Next Brief

Once patterns start to emerge, bring those insights back into your next round of ad briefs.

You might:

• Update hook guidance based on retention data
• Refine proof requirements based on conversion performance
• Remove talking points that consistently fall flat
• Add recurring customer questions found in comments
• Save winning concepts and visual references in a swipe file
• Maintain brief versions for different audiences, funnel stages, or platforms

Over time, this creates a feedback loop between your creative strategy and performance data.

The brief stops being a document you recreate from scratch for every campaign. It becomes part of a learning system where each round of UGC gives the next one a stronger starting point.

A Conversion-Focused UGC Brief Framework

You can use this framework to turn customer strategy into a creator brief that is clear, focused, and easier to execute. 

UGC Brief Examples From Our Campaigns

Remember, UGC briefs do not always need to follow the same format. The level of detail can change based on the campaign, creator relationship, and context shared before production.

Here are some examples from campaigns our team has worked on.

Example 1: Chin-Su Creator Brief

This Chin-Su brief keeps the direction visual and easy to scan. It gives the creator a three-part storyboard with an opener, subject, and CTA. It also covers deliverables, reference ads, required hashtags, filming guidance, and clear do’s and don’ts.

Disclaimer: This was an execution-focused brief. We had already discussed details such as the target audience, campaign objectives, performance targets, and usage terms with the creator. The document could therefore stay focused on what the creator needed for production.

Example 2: Brave Creator Brief

Our Brave brief gives creators more detailed messaging direction while still leaving room for their own delivery. 

This gives the creator clear direction on the message, hooks, CTA, and claim boundaries without prescribing every word.

Disclaimer: Details such as the target audience, campaign objective, primary KPI, usage rights, and other campaign terms had already been aligned outside this execution brief.

These examples highlight an important point: every campaign detail does not need to live in one document. The creator does, however, need the full strategic, creative, and production context before filming starts. If that context has not been shared elsewhere, the brief should cover it directly. 

Complete UGC Creative Brief Example

The two examples above show how real execution briefs can vary depending on the campaign and what has already been agreed with the creator.

To show what a complete standalone brief can look like, we created the sample below for an eco-friendly water bottle campaign. 

Create Performance-Driven UGC With 9AM 

If you want your UGC ad creative to do more than earn attention, the right strategy needs to start before production. 

At 9AM, we help brands develop performance creative, produce UGC at scale, test creative variants, and use performance data to improve each new round of content. 

Our team connects strategy, production, and testing so your creator briefs stay focused on the outcomes that matter.

Request a free UGC audit now to see where your current briefs may be limiting performance and what to improve next. 

FAQs

How Long Should a UGC Creative Brief Be?

A UGC creative brief should be long enough to give the creator clear strategic and production direction without overwhelming them. In most cases, one to three pages can work well. Prioritize the audience, campaign objective, core message, proof, requirements, and CTA over unnecessary detail.

Should a UGC Brief Include a Complete Script?

Usually, no. A complete script can make user-generated content feel rigid or unnatural. Instead, give creators the core message, required talking points, proof, CTA, and brand guidelines. A full script may still make sense when exact wording is required for compliance or specific claims.

How Many Content Concepts Should You Include in One UGC Brief?

There is no universal number, but keeping each concept focused makes execution easier. If you want to test several hooks, objections, or creative angles, separate them clearly rather than packing everything into one concept. Each variation should have a specific reason for being tested.

Should Paid Ads and Organic UGC Use Separate Briefs?

Yes, in most cases. Paid UGC ad creative usually needs clearer performance targets, hooks, offers, CTAs, and platform-specific requirements. Organic content may leave more room for community engagement and creator storytelling. Separate briefs help you account for the different role each asset plays.

Does 9AM Create UGC for Paid Social Campaigns?

Yes. 9AM develops performance creative with conversion in mind, including UGC at scale. Our team supports creator networks, content production, rights management, and performance optimization as part of its creative strategy services.

Can 9AM Help Test Different UGC Creative Variations?

Yes. 9AM uses systematic creative testing and ad iteration to compare creative variants and identify stronger performers. This includes A/B testing, creative analysis, performance tracking, and rapid iteration. These insights help brands turn campaign learnings into better creative decisions over time. 

ChatGPT has ads now.

Yes, OpenAI, the company behind arguably the world's most popular AI assistant and chatbot, has rolled out ads.

These ads now appear below relevant ChatGPT responses as clearly labeled sponsored placements. They typically include an advertiser name, a headline, a description, an image, and a landing page.

They’re like search ads, if you will, but not quite. Unlike keyword targeting in search ads, OpenAI ads rely on contextual and conversational signals. And that could be a game changer. 

And it also changes what brands should look for in an agency. A strong partner needs paid search experience and a clear understanding of how LLMs interpret context and shape discovery. 

So, if you’re looking for a ChatGPT Ads agency, we’ve put together a list of early adopters and AI search specialists who can help you get started on solid ground. 

A Quick Rundown of ChatGPT Advertising Agencies

Is Running ChatGPT Ads Worth It?

ChatGPT Ads are worth testing for brands that heavily rely on search for product or service discovery. People are increasingly turning to AI assistants and LLMs for recommendations. These ads can be a new way for an audience to discover your business, particularly in an environment with high buyer intent. 

According to OpenAI itself, the platform has over 800 million weekly users, including one million business users. The latter makes the case for B2B brands to leverage ChatGPT ads, as buying committees may just be starting their search with AI queries. 

The reality is that search behavior is changing, and a large share of Google queries is shifting to AI tools and chatbots. McKinsey found that roughly 40% to 55% of consumers across sectors such as electronics, travel, apparel, beauty, grocery, wellness, and financial services use AI-based search to inform purchasing decisions.

But what’s even more interesting is that AI-referred shoppers are spending more, too. Adobe data showed that such visitors generated 53% more revenue per visit. That’s probably because those searching are ready to purchase. 

All this only reinforces the importance of search engine optimization (SEO) and generative engine optimization (GEO) to organically earn AI citations and recommendations. But the inclusion of LLM Ads offers brands a new opportunity to be readily visible in chatbot queries. That can be helpful for customer acquisition, qualified leads, and AI-driven discovery. 

Best Agencies for ChatGPT Ads (Early Adopters + Paid Search Pros)

Here are nine agencies that have a head start in OpenAI ads and are offering services dedicated to this new stream in paid search: 

1. Dentsu

dentsu is one of the strongest options on this list for brands that want direct exposure to the earliest phase of ChatGPT advertising. 

In February 2026, dentsu announced that they had joined OpenAI’s Ad Pilot Program as an early test partner, with several of their clients participating across industries including CPG, grocery, hospitality, retail, software, and travel. 

That gives them an advantage over firms approaching the platform only from the outside, since they can gather firsthand learnings about how ads perform within ChatGPT’s conversational environment. 

dentsu also brings significant scale, operating across roughly 120 countries and regions, along with established expertise in performance marketing, data, and AI-driven audience strategy.

Good match for: Enterprise brands seeking early pilot experience and global campaign scale. 

2. WebFX

WebFX is a digital marketing agency that has already begun testing ChatGPT Ads for clients. They’re one of the more hands-on options for those who want to experiment with the platform while it’s still developing. 

Their GEO expertise also allows them to connect paid campaigns with a brand’s wider presence in AI search. OmniSEO® identifies the prompts and topics where the brand appears, while RevenueCloudFX tracks both direct and assisted conversions from paid media.

WebFX treats ChatGPT as an additional media channel rather than a reason to pull budget from Google or Microsoft too soon. For brands ready to test it, the agency recommends a monthly ChatGPT ad spend of at least $5,000.

Good match for: Brands that want ChatGPT Ads connected to GEO, conversion tracking, and broader search visibility. 

3. 9AM

9AM is a performance media agency that brings their paid search playbook directly into ChatGPT Ads. They know how to build high-ROAS campaigns, test efficiently, and make performance decisions based on real data.

The agency has managed more than $250 million in ad spend across CPG, health and wellness, food, mobile apps, and other verticals. Their client list includes Hurom, Miro, Pros, and Hopper.

For ChatGPT Ads, 9AM combines sharp audience strategy with ongoing creative testing and careful measurement. They treat OpenAI Ads as part of the wider media mix, helping brands test the channel, learn quickly, and scale spend when the results support it.

Good match for: Established advertisers ready to add ChatGPT Ads to a mature performance media strategy.

4. Stackmatix

Stackmatix is a U.S.-based growth marketing agency with a strong focus on venture-backed startups and scaleups. 

They have worked with more than 200 startups, including companies backed by a16z, Sequoia, HF0, and Y Combinator. Their experience spans fintech, AI, SaaS, marketplaces, healthtech, ecommerce, and other fast-moving sectors. Previous clients include Figma, Kalshi, and CodeRabbit.

ChatGPT Ads fit naturally into Stackmatix’s wider SEO and AI search offering. They bring rapid experimentation, A/B testing, and close performance analysis to the channel, giving growth-stage companies a structured way to test OpenAI Ads and scale what works.

Good match for: Venture-backed startups and scaleups looking for fast, data-driven ChatGPT Ads testing.

5. Focus Digital

Focus Digital approaches ChatGPT as part of a wider AI visibility and demand-generation strategy. Their work is geared toward B2B companies that want to understand how AI discovery can translate into qualified traffic and leads.

They study the conversational intent behind buyer prompts and track how brands appear across ChatGPT and other AI search tools. They then connect that visibility to outcomes such as traffic quality and lead conversion.

Focus Digital starts with an AI visibility assessment and expands the investment when the opportunity is clear. Their offering is geared toward citations, conversational optimization, and organic AI discovery rather than hands-on campaign management through OpenAI Ads Manager.

Good match for: B2B companies that want to strengthen and measure their organic AI visibility before investing more heavily in ChatGPT Ads.

6. InterTeam

InterTeam is a B2B performance marketing agency invited by OpenAI to test ChatGPT Ads.

They start with the questions and comparisons buyers are already bringing to ChatGPT, then build campaigns around those conversations. As performance data comes in, they use CRM feedback to identify which ads are producing qualified leads and refine the campaigns accordingly.

Their approach connects ChatGPT Ads with the wider sales funnel, with campaign decisions based on lead quality rather than click volume alone. InterTeam only manages paid campaigns, though, so organic AI discovery is outside their scope.

Good match for: B2B SaaS companies that want ChatGPT Ads tied closely to lead quality and CRM data.

7. OneDay

One Day is a full-funnel advertising agency that offers a wide range of services, including AI search and, as part of that, ChatGPT ads. 

They focus on reaching users while they are researching their options and moving closer to a decision. This is particularly relevant for brands targeting professionals, founders, and other digitally confident audiences.

One Day tests how sponsored placements fit within real ChatGPT conversations, then uses performance signals and campaign learnings to sharpen the wider media and creative strategy.

Good match for: Brands that want ChatGPT Ads connected to a broader full-funnel advertising strategy.

8. RiseUp

RiseUp is a UK-based, AI-first growth agency with a measured approach to the still-emerging ChatGPT advertising market.

Rather than pushing brands to invest heavily from the start, they recommend contained, capped tests while building the data and infrastructure needed for AI-driven discovery.

RiseUp is geared toward established advertisers already spending across Google, Microsoft, Meta, or Amazon. They typically work with monthly media budgets between £10,000 and £500,000+, putting them firmly at the larger end of the market.

Good match for: Established advertisers that want to test ChatGPT Ads carefully alongside a substantial multichannel media program.

9. Maley Digital

Maley Digital is a PPC-only agency with a straightforward, performance-led approach to ChatGPT Ads.

Their team of 12 senior PPC specialists manages more than £20 million in annual ad spend across Google and Microsoft, as well as Meta. Every campaign manager has at least five years of hands-on PPC experience.

Maley Digital is realistic about where ChatGPT fits. They do not assume it will outperform established channels for every advertiser, so they judge each test against the brand’s existing conversion performance and commercial returns.

Good match for: Ecommerce and lead-generation businesses that want experienced PPC specialists to test ChatGPT Ads against clear commercial benchmarks.

What Should a ChatGPT Ads Agency Report Back?

A ChatGPT Ads agency should report how the budget was used, which campaigns generated meaningful actions, and what they plan to change next. Early AI-native advertising reports need enough detail to show where the results came from, rather than rolling everything into a single platform-wide number.

At minimum, reporting should cover:

• Delivery

Impressions, clicks, spend, CPC or CPM, and budget pacing. Where useful, the agency can compare these results with your core ad networks, provided the objectives and attribution windows are comparable.

• Conversion performance

The conversion event being measured, total conversions, conversion rate, CPA, and revenue where available. OpenAI reports click-through and view-through conversions separately, so the agency should distinguish between.

• Conversion paths

What visitors did after clicking the ad, including the landing pages they entered through and where they dropped out. For B2B campaigns, reporting should follow leads into the CRM to show lead quality and any contribution to pipeline growth.

• Creative and context

Results by campaign, ad group, and creative. The agency should explain which conversational situations produced the strongest response and how those findings will shape future sponsored units or landing pages.

• Next decisions

Which campaigns deserve more budget and which need another round of testing. This is where clear measurement frameworks and good conversion optimization are most important.

ChatGPT Ads may play a different role from other ad platforms, especially while the channel is still developing. A useful report should show whether the campaign is adding new demand capture, reaching valuable buyers, and producing enough evidence to guide the next test.

Things to Consider When Hiring an OpenAI Ads Agency

ChatGPT Ads are still new, and OpenAI Ads Manager remains in beta, which means most ad agencies will not yet have years of platform-specific experience or even ChatGPT Ads case studies. 

The platform itself is also evolving, from campaign creation and measurement to ad formats and delivery. 

With that in mind, it makes more sense to evaluate a ChatGPT Ads Agency based on transferable expertise and its understanding of AI-driven discovery. Here’s what that looks like: 

Prior Paid Search Experience

Strong paid search experience is one of the most useful foundations. Agencies accustomed to managing Google Ads (PPC services), conversion tracking, landing pages, bidding, and performance optimization already understand the discipline required to turn ad spend into measurable customer acquisition or qualified leads. 

ChatGPT uses richer conversational intent instead of solely relying on traditional keyword matching. That said, many of the fundamentals around testing, conversion performance, measurement and analytics, and budget allocation still apply.

Understanding of LLMs

The agency should also understand how LLMs and AI search platforms differ from conventional search engines. ChatGPT can interpret the broader context and intent of a conversation when determining ad relevance, which creates a different environment from targeting an isolated search query. 

That understanding can come from work on GEO projects. 

Look for a team that understands AI search, AI responses, contextual conversation matching, AI-driven discovery, and how people use an AI assistant throughout the buyer's journey. 

Ability to Connect ChatGPT Ads with SEO and GEO

For most brands, ChatGPT Ads would work best alongside organic discovery. A capable agency should understand how ChatGPT Ads can complement SEO and GEO efforts aimed at improving citation presence, authority, and brand visibility in AI-generated responses. 

You want a more connected search strategy in which paid media drives demand through sponsored placements, while content marketing strengthens the brand's organic presence across search engines and chatbots.

FAQs

What are OpenAI Ads?

OpenAI Ads are paid placements that allow businesses to advertise within ChatGPT. They are clearly labeled as sponsored and kept separate from ChatGPT’s answers. 

How do ChatGPT Ads work?

ChatGPT Ads can appear below relevant responses, with delivery influenced by conversational context and intent, ad content, landing pages, targeting, and advertiser-provided context hints. OpenAI uses a self-serve platform with a relevance-weighted auction to choose among eligible ads. 

How much will ChatGPT Ads cost?

Pricing depends on campaign objective and competition: advertisers can currently buy on CPM, CPC, or conversion-optimized CPC (oCPC) models. For standard CPC campaigns, OpenAI recommends starting with a maximum bid of about $3-$5 per click.  

What is the minimum ad spend for ChatGPT ads?

The minimum depends on the market. In the U.S., the current minimum daily budget is $25 per campaign, while in the UK, the minimum is £15 per day. OpenAI recommends starting with a daily budget as you learn how campaigns perform. 

Who should advertise on OpenAI?

OpenAI positions ChatGPT Ads for businesses of all sizes, from startups and SMBs to global brands. It may work for brands whose customers use chatbots for product and information queries. Note that it’s still a new channel and only available in select countries. 

Facebook Ads can still drive serious revenue, but putting most of your acquisition budget into one platform has become harder to defend.

Performance teams now have more places to invest. Google Search can capture existing demand, while TikTok and YouTube can reach buyers earlier. 

Brands are also putting more money into creator partnerships, affiliate marketing, and owned channels to reduce their reliance on paid social. 

In fact, Gartner found that 69% of digital marketing spend went to paid online channels in 2025, with paid search taking 13.9% and social advertising 12.2%.

We still see a clear place for Meta Ads in a profitable media mix. 

But the bigger question is where else your next marketing dollar can deliver value.  

This guide breaks down the leading Facebook Ads alternatives, where they fit, and how to reallocate budget without abandoning a profitable Meta channel.

TL;DR

• Facebook Ads can still be profitable, but relying on one platform puts too much of your acquisition strategy in one place.
• Google Ads works best when you want to capture existing demand from people already searching for a solution.
• TikTok, YouTube, LinkedIn, and Snapchat each serve different audiences and stages of the buying journey.
• Choose new advertising platforms based on customer intent, audience fit, creative demands, and campaign economics.
• Creator-led UGC and whitelisting can give paid social teams more creative angles to test and scale.
• SEO, email, SMS, and affiliate marketing can add acquisition and retention paths beyond platform advertising.
• Compare channels using the metrics that match their role instead of applying the same KPIs across your entire media mix.
• Keep Meta Ads where they remain profitable, then test complementary channels with controlled budgets before reallocating more spend.

Why Performance Marketers Are Looking Beyond Facebook Ads

Facebook still gives you massive reach and strong targeting. The problem starts when too much of your acquisition plan depends on keeping one channel efficient. 

Several pressures are making that dependence harder for performance teams to justify. 

Rising Customer Acquisition Costs

More advertisers competing for the same attention can make profitable growth harder. 

Meta reported that the average price per ad increased by 9% in 2025, while ad impressions increased by 12%.

Higher ad prices do not automatically mean higher CAC, but they put more pressure on campaign economics. 

Our team looks at customer acquisition costs alongside contribution margin before pushing more spend into a campaign. If that math starts to weaken, testing other channels becomes a practical next move. 

Attribution Has Become More Challenging

A conversion can involve several touchpoints before the sale. Someone might discover you on Instagram, search for you on Google, return through email, and then buy.

Privacy changes and iOS attribution limits have made that journey harder to measure at the user level. 

That makes platform-reported ROAS less useful on its own. First-party data, incrementality, and broader performance data can give you a more complete view of what actually influenced the sale. 

Read next: The Cookie-Less Future: How to Win in a Privacy-First World

Creative Fatigue Makes Scaling Harder

A winning Facebook ad has a shelf life. As frequency rises, the same audience can start responding less to the creative.

This makes creative production part of the scaling equation. More spend can mean you need fresh concepts, hooks, ad formats, and vertical video at a faster pace.

Diversification Reduces Platform Risk

Heavy dependence on the Meta platform leaves more of your revenue exposed to changes you cannot control. 

An algorithm update, campaign rejection, account restriction, CPM spike, or tracking change can affect performance quickly.

We've found that a more diversified advertising strategy gives performance teams more room to respond when one channel becomes less efficient.

Quick Comparison of Facebook Ads Alternatives

There is no universal replacement for Facebook Ads. The better choice depends on what you need your next budget allocation to accomplish.

Now let’s look at where each channel fits, what it does well, and the trade-offs to consider before moving budget. 

Where Performance Marketers Are Reallocating Paid Media Budget

Facebook Ads alternatives work best when you choose them for a specific job rather than looking for a like-for-like Meta replacement. 

The right fit depends on the demand you want to capture, the audience you need to reach, and what your budget can support. 

1. Google Ads for Capturing High-Intent Demand

Google Ads changes the starting point of the conversation. Instead of interrupting someone in a social feed, you can meet them through the search engine when they have already expressed intent.

This intent comes with a huge scale. Google said in 2025 that it processed more than 5 trillion searches a year, while commercial search queries were still growing. 

• Best for: Ecommerce, local services, SaaS, and categories with existing search demand.
• Strengths: Google Search reaches people who are actively looking for a product or solution. Google Shopping can also connect e-commerce shoppers with relevant product pages directly from search results.
• Limitations: Search engine ads capture existing demand, so scale depends partly on search volume. Competition can also make clicks expensive in valuable categories.
• Budget considerations: Look at conversion value and contribution margin alongside CPC. An expensive keyword can still make sense when the traffic converts profitably.
• Our take: Google Ads deserves more budget when search intent translates into profitable conversions for your business. 

2. TikTok Ads for Scalable Product Discovery

TikTok puts your creative into an entertainment feed where people may have had no intention of shopping. But strong content can turn that passive scrolling into product discovery. 

In fact, TikTok Shop research published in 2026 found that two-thirds of U.S. users discovered a new brand on the platform, and more than 57% bought from that brand within days. 

• Best for: Ecommerce, consumer brands, mobile apps, and products that translate well to short-form video.
• Strengths: TikTok Ads support native vertical video, which works well for demonstrations, testimonials, problem-solution concepts, and creator-led ad formats.
• Limitations: Creative can lose momentum quickly. You need a steady supply of new concepts, hooks, and executions to keep testing.
• Budget considerations: Plan for creative production alongside media spend. More budget creates little room to scale if you cannot produce enough variations to support your paid social campaigns.
• Our take: TikTok earns budget when your product can create interest quickly through strong visual creative.

3. YouTube Ads for Full-Funnel Video Advertising

Some buying decisions need more than a quick interruption in a social feed. YouTube gives people more time and context to evaluate what you sell. 

In 2026, Kantar research cited by YouTube ranked it the #1 platform viewers turn to when they want to research, vet, or make a decision about a brand or product, ahead of other social platforms. 

• Best for: Higher-consideration products, SaaS, education-led offers, and brands with a longer path to purchase.
• Strengths: YouTube supports multiple video ad formats across different stages of the funnel. Its connection to Google's advertising ecosystem also gives you several audience and campaign options.
• Limitations: Your creative still has to earn attention quickly. Production becomes more demanding when you need demonstrations, storytelling, and multiple video variations.
• Budget considerations: Include production and testing costs in the media plan. Heavy distribution spend becomes harder to justify when you only have one or two videos available.
• Our take: YouTube deserves a closer look when buyers need more information before they are ready to act.

4. LinkedIn Ads for B2B Lead Generation

B2B media buying has a different problem from mass-market advertising. Reaching fewer people can be perfectly fine when those people are the ones involved in the buying decision. 

This helps explain why more B2B budget is moving toward the platform. Dreamdata research highlighted by LinkedIn in 2026 found that LinkedIn's share of B2B advertising budgets increased from 39% to 41%. 

• Best for: B2B SaaS, enterprise products, professional services, and account-based marketing.
• Strengths: LinkedIn Ads lets you build audiences around professional signals such as job title, company, industry, and seniority. This precision can help you reach specific buying committees and decision-makers.
• Limitations: Clicks and leads can be expensive compared with many other advertising platforms. Low-cost reach is rarely the right benchmark.
• Budget considerations: Evaluate spend against qualified pipeline and revenue rather than lead volume alone. A higher customer acquisition cost can still work when deal values and contribution margin support it.
• Our take: LinkedIn makes sense when audience quality matters more to your economics than audience size.

5. Snapchat Ads for Reaching Younger Mobile-First Audiences

Snapchat offers a different audience opportunity from Facebook and Instagram, particularly when younger and mobile-first consumers matter to your growth. 

The platform reaches 75% of people aged 13 to 34 across more than 25 countries, which makes that audience a key reason for advertisers to consider it. 

• Best for: Consumer brands, mobile apps, entertainment, and products aimed at younger social media users.
• Strengths: Snapchat Ads support vertical video and several ad units, including Single Image or Video Ads, Collection Ads, Story Ads, and AR experiences.
• Limitations: The platform becomes less compelling when your target customers skew older, or your offer requires a long explanation before conversion.
• Budget considerations: Start with a controlled test and compare customer quality and acquisition costs with your other paid advertising channels before increasing spend.
• Our take: Snapchat is most useful when its audience closely matches the customers you want to acquire.

Marketing Strategies Receiving More Performance Budget

Reallocating the budget can go further than switching advertising platforms. Some of that spend can support strategies that create demand, produce better creative, or get more value from customers you already acquired.

At 9AM, we look at these investments as part of the wider performance mix rather than separate marketing projects.

1. Creator-Led UGC and Whitelisting for Stronger Campaign Performance

Your media budget can only work as hard as the creative behind it. Creator-led UGC gives paid social teams more concepts, hooks, demonstrations, and testimonials to test.

And whitelisting takes that content further by running ads through a creator's account rather than the brand account. 

We use this approach across many campaigns because it connects creator production directly with media buying. Performance data can then show which messages deserve more spend. 

For example, our team used this model in a campaign for Miro with product leadership creator David Pereira.

Instead of stopping at a sponsored post, we ran his content as a paid ad from his handle. This gave us control over targeting and spend while keeping the message native to his audience. 

2. Influencer Marketing for Trusted Recommendations

Influencer marketing gives your product a recommendation from someone your audience already chooses to follow. This makes it useful for introducing unfamiliar products and reaching niche communities through a more personal format.

Creator partnerships can also give you access to content and audience insights that inform future campaigns. 

However, the key is choosing creators for audience fit and commercial relevance rather than follower count alone.

3. SEO and Content Marketing for Sustained Customer Acquisition

Paid media can drive demand fast, but it also keeps charging you for every visit. SEO gives you a different kind of return.

We recommend treating strong content as an acquisition asset rather than a one-off campaign. 

And even as AI changes how people search, organic visibility still matters. BrightEdge research covering January through August 2025 found that AI search accounted for less than 1% of referral traffic, while organic search remained the primary referral driver and delivered the majority of conversions in its dataset.

This makes the job clear: find topics with real search demand, answer the buyer's question well, and give that traffic a clear path toward conversion.

It takes longer to build momentum than paid advertising, but it can make your acquisition mix less dependent on constant media spend.

4. Email and SMS Marketing for Retention and Repeat Purchases

Acquisition gets expensive when every sale depends on finding a new customer. Email marketing and SMS give you another lever: getting more value from the audience you have already paid to acquire.

These channels can bring customers back through abandoned-cart messages, replenishment reminders, product launches, and loyalty programs. 

They also give you a direct line to your audience using first-party data, with less dependence on paid media for every repeat purchase.

5. Affiliate Marketing for Performance-Based Acquisition

Affiliate marketing shifts part of your acquisition spend toward outcomes. Publishers, creators, and other partners promote your offer and receive a commission when they generate an agreed action, such as a sale.

This model can make costs easier to tie to revenue, but partner quality still matters. 

We would rather build a smaller affiliate program with relevant partners than chase a large network that sends low-value traffic.

For performance teams, the appeal is simple: affiliate marketing can add another acquisition source with economics that are closely tied to measurable results.

5 Common Mistakes to Avoid When Moving Away From Facebook Ads

A broader media mix can help, but a rushed shift creates a different set of problems. We suggest watching for these common mistakes:

1. Chasing lower CPMs: Cheap reach means little if CAC, conversion quality, or contribution margin gets worse.
2. Moving too much budget too quickly: A new channel needs enough controlled spend to prove itself before it earns a larger share.
3. Forcing Meta creative onto other platforms: Search, TikTok, YouTube, and LinkedIn each demand a different message and format.
4. Judging channels too early: Early performance can be noisy. Give campaigns enough time and data before you make a call.
5. Optimizing to the wrong success metric: Brand discovery, search capture, B2B pipeline, and retention should not all be judged by the same KPI.

Should I Replace Facebook Ads or Diversify Your Marketing Mix?

You should usually diversify your marketing mix rather than replace Facebook Ads completely. Keep Meta Ads where they remain profitable, reduce overdependence by adding channels that serve different roles, and test each addition with controlled budgets before shifting more spend. 

Build a More Profitable Channel Mix With 9AM 

If you want to reduce your reliance on Facebook Ads without giving up a channel that still works, 9AM can help you decide where your next marketing dollar should go. 

Our performance marketing services cover media buying, creative strategy, influencer marketing, growth strategy, and analytics to help you find the right mix for your goals and scale what performs. 

Book a free strategy call to find the right channel mix for your growth goals. 

FAQs

What Are the Best Alternatives to Facebook Ads for Ecommerce Brands?

Google Ads and TikTok Ads are the strongest starting points for many e-commerce brands. Google captures shoppers already searching for products, while TikTok can create demand through product discovery. YouTube Ads can support products that need more explanation before purchase. 

Which Facebook Ads Alternatives Work Best When Meta CPMs Keep Rising?

Do not switch platforms based on CPM alone. Test Google Ads if you have strong search demand, TikTok Ads for discovery-led products, or YouTube Ads when buyers need more education. Compare CAC and contribution margin before reallocating the budget. 

What Are the Best Facebook Ads Alternatives for Mobile App Growth?

Google Ads is strongest for intent-led app discovery, while TikTok Ads and Snapchat Ads work better for visual, entertainment-led apps that can sell the experience quickly. YouTube Ads fit apps that need more explanation before install. Judge each channel on activation, retention, and revenue after install. 

Influencer marketing vs Facebook Ads: Which is better for brand awareness? 

Facebook Ads are better when you want controlled reach, targeting, and predictable distribution. Influencer marketing, on the other hand, can be stronger when brand awareness depends on creator credibility and audience trust. The better choice depends on how you want people to discover your brand. 

Can 9AM Manage Multiple Paid Media Channels Under One Strategy?

Yes. 9AM manages paid social, search and shopping, programmatic, CTV, and retail media under one performance strategy. The team coordinates channel roles, creative, budget allocation, and optimization around shared growth goals.

How Does 9AM Measure Performance Across Different Advertising Platforms?

9AM connects platform data with broader business metrics such as CAC, LTV, revenue, and contribution margin. Our team also uses attribution modeling and custom dashboards to compare channel performance without forcing every platform into the same KPI.

YouTube Ads give brands access to a huge video audience with the same level of control as in Google Ads. YouTube Ads formats, like in-stream, bumper, in-feed, masthead ads, and YouTube Shorts ads, are great for awareness, engagement, demand generation, and even conversions. 

But the space is highly saturated. 

82% of video marketers reported using YouTube in a Wyzowl survey, more than any other platform. 

If you want to use this channel to drive real business outcomes, you need a strong content strategy, creative storytelling, and accurate audience targeting. A YouTube Ad agency can help with concept development, video production, creative testing, targeting, and analytics. It can turn YouTube, a platform with over 2.5 billion active users, into a profitable paid media component. 

This list brings you YouTube Ads agencies with proven client experience, a wide range of YouTube services, and expertise in video marketing. 

TL;DR: Top YouTube Ads Agencies

1. Vireo Video: Best for brands seeking a YouTube-focused agency that combines video production, campaign management, conversion tracking, and funnel optimization.
2. Disruptive Advertising: Best for established brands that want YouTube Ads integrated with paid search, paid social, ecommerce, and lifecycle marketing.
3. 9AM: Best for mid to large enterprise and DTC brands that need creator-led YouTube Ads, ideally alongside other platforms, with strong measurement and attribution. 
4. Single Grain: Best for companies seeking both paid YouTube advertising and organic channel growth.
5. LYFE Marketing: Best for small and midsize businesses that want accessible YouTube ad management alongside other digital marketing.
6. Video Power: Best for established ecommerce, coaching, education, and service businesses with a strong focus on direct-response growth.
7. Directive: Best for B2B SaaS, technology, industrial, and professional services companies that want YouTube Ads tied to demand generation and qualified pipeline.
8. WebFX: Best for businesses seeking YouTube advertising within a broader, data-driven digital marketing program with advanced tracking and revenue attribution.
9. Rocket Agency: Best for brands that need YouTube creative, media buying, and cross-channel PPC managed by a single agency.
10. Linx Digital: Best for ecommerce, SaaS, education, consulting, and high-ticket businesses looking to scale customer acquisition through direct-response video campaigns.

What We Looked At

Many YouTube marketing agencies have a strong emphasis on production. And many Google Ads agencies treat YouTube as a secondary channel or use it only within Performance Max campaigns. We tried to find agencies that either specialize in YouTube advertising or make it a key part of their paid media offerings. 

The baseline criterion for selection was a clear, dedicated YouTube Ads capability. Then, we used the following criteria to shortlist the ones that are best suited to support full-funnel video marketing: 

• Experience managing full-funnel video campaigns
• Creative strategy, video production, and ad copywriting support
• Audience targeting, creative testing, and campaign optimization
• Analytics, conversion tracking, and ROAS reporting
• Ability to connect YouTube campaigns with optimized landing pages, ecommerce, demand gen, and other Google advertising tools

To confirm the above, we reviewed relevant case studies and client testimonials. At the same time, we maintained sufficient variety in the scope of services and the agencies' specialties to suit various marketing needs and industry fits.

*Note: The same criteria were used to evaluate our own services (9AM appears at #3 below); we're disclosing that upfront since we're both the publisher and one of the agencies being compared.

Here are the agencies to consider. 

1. Vireo Video

Vireo Video is a specialist YouTube marketing agency that covers strategy, creative development, campaign setup, management, and performance monitoring. It’s basically a full-service partner for all things YouTube, handling everything from strategy and video production to landing page optimization. 

The agency can work with existing video content or develop new creative. And several detailed case studies back their claims. One client, PolicyMe, saw a 20-fold increase in conversions, with an 86% lower cost per acquisition.

Besides ads, it offers YouTube growth services for brands with active channels that want to use video content for full-funnel marketing. 

• Services: YouTube growth, YouTube Ads strategy, video production, campaign setup, ad spend management, landing page support, conversion tracking, optimization, and performance reporting.
• Recommended for: Brands seeking a YouTube-exclusive partner for production, advertising, and revenue-focused optimization. 
• Rating: 4.9/5 (Google)

2. Disruptive Advertising

Disruptive Advertising is a full-service digital marketing agency with dedicated YouTube and video advertising capabilities. It runs revenue-centric campaigns and covers virtually all YouTube ad formats. If you need help with content ideation and production, it can do that, too. 

The agency builds campaigns around different stages of the customer journey to support brand awareness, consideration, conversions, and sales. It also evaluates results beyond last-click conversions by considering metrics like reach, brand lift, view-through conversions, assisted conversions, and organic search activity.

Disruptive can connect YouTube ad campaigns with paid search, paid social, ecommerce, and data analytics. And it’s the most-reviewed agency on this list, with mostly positive feedback. 

• YouTube Services: YouTube advertising strategy, audience targeting, creative concept development, video production, campaign setup and management, analytics and reporting.
• Other Services: Paid search, paid social, lifecycle marketing, Amazon, SEO, lead generation, and CRO. 
• Recommended for: Established B2B, B2C, and ecommerce brands that want YouTube Ads managed as part of a broader performance marketing.
• Rating: 4.7/5 (G2)

3. 9AM

9AM is a performance marketing agency that offers cost-optimized, highly targeted YouTube Ads as an integral part of its Google Ads portfolio. 

The team leverages influencer-led performance creatives that typically perform well in video formats such as in-feed, in-stream, and Shorts ads. 

The agency has worked with brands across CPG, wellness, ecommerce, food & beverage, and SaaS, primarily using influencer and UGC assets to drive stronger impact. Across its over 120 clients, it has achieved an 8.5x ROI from Google Ads overall. 

Plus, it’s a measurement specialist. It can precisely attribute YouTube-led awareness and conversions for better ad allocation, especially when YouTube ads run alongside Meta and TikTok.

• YouTube Services: YouTube Ads (TruView Ads, bumper ads, and discovery ads in long- and short-form YouTube content), audience segmentation, creator-led video production, and campaign optimization.
• Other Services: Google search ads, paid social, Connected TV, programmatic, measurement and attribution. 
• Recommended for: Enterprise and DTC brands that want sharply targeted and highly optimized YouTube campaigns, especially involving creator content.
• Rating: 4.9/5 (G2)

4. Single Grain

Single Grain is a full-service digital marketing agency that combines YouTube advertising with organic channel growth, content production, and conversion strategy. Since it caters to the education, SaaS, and crypto industries, it’s best for companies seeking both organic YouTube channel growth through informational content and paid amplification. 

Also, the agency’s broader capabilities make it great for brands that want YouTube connected with their website, email marketing, social media advertising, content marketing, and sales funnel. 

The Los Angeles-based agency primarily works with mid- to large-sized businesses, with a minimum project size of $10K. 

• YouTube Services: Content strategy, channel audits, audience research, content creation, professional video production, YouTube SEO, YouTube Shorts, community management, ad creative development, campaign management, and analytics.
• Other Services: SEO, PPC, TikTok marketing, CRO, creative strategy. 
• Recommended for: Growth-stage and established brands seeking an integrated YouTube marketing partner for paid advertising and organic channel development.
• Rating: 4.8/5 (Clutch)

5. Lyfe Marketing

LYFE Marketing is a full-service digital marketing agency that specializes in short-form video marketing. It operates YouTube advertising alongside PPC, social media advertising, email marketing, ecommerce marketing, and conversion-focused services. 

Its YouTube Ads process includes campaign strategy, audience research, ad creation, budgeting, bid management, performance monitoring, and ongoing optimization. To keep costs down, the team uses narrow targeting options like demographics, interests, keywords, competitor audiences, specific YouTube channels, remarketing lists, and in-market or affinity audiences. 

LYFE Marketing states that it is a Google Partner with more than 70 digital marketing professionals and provides clients with a dedicated account manager.

• YouTube Services: YouTube ad strategy, audience and keyword targeting, video ad creation, campaign setup, Google Analytics tracking, campaign optimization, and performance reporting.
• Other Services: PPC, social media advertising, email marketing, and CRO.
• Recommended for: Small and midsize businesses seeking relatively accessible YouTube ad management that can be coordinated with Google Search and other social media channels.
• Rating: 4.8/5 (Featured Customers)

6. Video Power

Video Power Marketing is a specialist YouTube ads agency focused on performance-oriented video campaigns. Unlike other exclusive YouTube marketing agencies, it doesn’t offer challenge management. 

It’s also a strong video production agency. Brands can choose live video production with the agency’s creative team or camera-free video creation. The former can work for companies that lack existing video content or an internal production team.

The agency says that prospective clients should be prepared to spend at least $10,000 per month on YouTube Ads. That means it’s more appropriate for established businesses with proven offerings than for companies testing the platform on a limited budget.

• Services: YouTube Ads, strategy, live and camera-free video production, campaign setup, conversion tracking, ad spend management, weekly optimization, reporting dashboards, and YouTube Ads training.
• Recommended for: Ecommerce, coaching, education, and service businesses seeking a YouTube-focused partner for direct-response campaigns, lead generation, and sales growth.

7. Directive

Directive is a B2B performance marketing agency that offers YouTube advertising as part of its broader paid media, creative, programmatic, and revenue operations capabilities. Its YouTube campaigns are designed around ideal customer profile targeting, full-funnel campaign architecture, retargeting, cross-channel amplification, and revenue attribution. 

The agency takes a different approach to B2B YouTube ads. It doesn’t focus as much on awareness. In fact, it claims it connects YouTube to a qualified pipeline. In addition, it uses YouTube to prop up B2B clients in organic and AI search. 

It may not be the best choice for running YouTube Ads alone, as it’s a full-service marketing partner that uses various channels for demand generation, lead nurturing, and conversions. 

• YouTube Services: YouTube Ads (skippable and non-skippable in-stream ads, bumper ads, video discovery or in-feed ads, YouTube Shorts, and sequenced retargeting campaigns), strategy, ICP and audience targeting, and creative development.
• Other Services: Paid search, paid social, programmatic advertising, CRO, analytics, revenue attribution, and RevOps.
• Recommended for: B2B SaaS, technology, industrial, and professional services companies that want YouTube advertising tied to account engagement, qualified pipeline, and wider demand generation campaigns.
• Rating: 4.8/5 (Clutch).

8. WebFX

WebFX is a full-service digital marketing agency that manages YouTube advertising alongside PPC, SEO, social media, ecommerce, and conversion-focused services. Its YouTube offering covers strategy development, competitor monitoring, campaign creation, keyword and audience research, bid management, ad copywriting, creative testing, advanced tracking, and monthly reporting. 

The agency primarily turns a brand’s existing video content into ads. That said, separate video production services are available for companies that need new creative assets. It can also extend campaigns beyond YouTube to Google, Microsoft, Meta, and streaming platforms like Hulu and Netflix.

WebFX may work for companies that want YouTube Ads connected to a larger, data-driven marketing program. Clients also get access to the agency’s RevenueCloudFX platform, which is its measurement and reporting infrastructure. 

• YouTube Services: YouTube ads and strategy, audience and keyword targeting, campaign setup, bid and budget management, ad copywriting, creative testing, conversion tracking, landing page support, video production, and reporting.
• Other Services: AI Search, SEO, marketing automation, CRO, web design. 
• Recommended for: Small, midsize, and enterprise businesses with a multichannel strategy involving Google Ads, SEO, social media, or connected TV.
• Rating: 4.9/5 (Clutch)

9. Rocket

Rocket Agency is an Australian full-service digital marketing firm that offers YouTube advertising through its PPC and creative capabilities. The team uses targeting options like custom intent audiences, affinity audiences, competitor URLs, keywords, demographics, and remarketing to drive clicks and conversions. 

The agency is best at integrating YouTube with Google Search, Display, paid social, and other digital marketing channels. 

Rocket is a Google Premier Partner and has won awards like Sem Search Awards (Best Advertising Campaign) and APAC Search Awards (Best Large PPC Agency).

• YouTube Services: YouTube ad strategy, audience targeting, creative concept development, scriptwriting, video production, campaign management, A/B testing, bid optimization, conversion tracking, and cross-channel paid media.
• Other Services: PPC, programmatic display, SEO, GEO, paid social, website design, and CRO. 
• Recommended for: Australian or international brands operating in the APAC region (B2B, B2C, and ecommerce brands) 
• Rating: 4.8/5 (Featured Customers)

10. Linx Digital

Linx Digital began as a specialist YouTube ads agency and has since expanded into a broader paid advertising firm covering TikTok and other video-led campaigns. Its approach combines media buying with creative development, beginning with an audit of the client’s offer, funnel, tracking, and existing video content.

Since they’re video pros, they can support businesses that need help with scripting, video production, and overall creative direction. And this emphasis on both creative and media management is important for YouTube. Adapting existing social ads without considering the platform’s viewing behavior can result in low click-through rates and conversions.

The agency’s case studies are largely centered on direct-response ecommerce, SaaS, consulting, education, and other high-ticket offers. 

• Services: YouTube advertising, funnel audits, audience targeting, ad scripting, video creative development, campaign setup, conversion tracking, creative testing, optimization, and TikTok Ads.
• Recommended for: Ecommerce, SaaS, B2B, education, consulting, and high-ticket businesses for YouTube ad campaigns tied to leads, sales, customer acquisition, and ROAS.
• Rating: 5/5.0 (Google)

YouTube Ads Agency Pricing: How Much Does It Cost?

YouTube ads agency pricing can range from a few thousand dollars per month to a five-figure retainer, depending on campaign complexity, ad spend, production requirements, and the number of markets or products involved. 

Marketing LTB estimates the monthly price range is between $1,500 and $20,000 in the U.S. 

Some agencies offer fixed-price packages for video production and ad management, but most have custom pricing based on the required services and whether you want a retainer model or to run campaigns as a one-off project. 

The total budget normally includes three separate cost categories:

• Agency management fees: A fixed retainer, a percentage of ad spend, or a mix of both. This usually covers campaign setup, bid management, analytics and reporting, A/B testing, and ongoing optimization.
• Advertising spend: The amount paid directly to Google for delivering the ads. YouTube uses an auction-based system, and campaigns may optimize toward views, impressions, clicks, conversions, or ROAS. 
• Creative and video production: If you also need help with creative work, like scriptwriting, filming, editing, motion graphics, thumbnails, and ad variations, these may be included in the retainer or billed separately. 

If you’re looking for an agency for YouTube Ads that targets high ROAS from day one and justifies every ad dollar, 9AM is the answer. 

Our YouTube advertising program, much like other paid media options, is highly outcome-focused. Campaigns are designed around business goals. That way, YouTube ads generate actual revenue impact. We don’t chase impressions and burn cash. 

Schedule a YouTube advertising strategy call. 

FAQ

Which of these YouTube ads agencies also provide production services?

All agencies listed in this article, including 9AM, can provide video production services. However, Vireo Video and Video Power are YouTube specialists, so they put more emphasis on video ideation and creation than other agencies. 

Do YouTube ads agencies also run Search/PMax alongside video? 

Yes, most of the agencies listed in this guide also provide Google search ads and Performance Max (which includes YouTube video ads by default). Combining search ads with video ads can be great for capturing a larger audience and retargeting. 

What's a realistic minimum monthly budget to make hiring a YouTube ads agency worthwhile?

A realistic minimum budget is around $5,000 to $10,000 per month, including both ad spend and agency fees. This typically leaves enough money for audience and creative testing, while covering management fees (several thousand dollars or a percentage of ad spend). 

What industries does 9AM cater to?

9AM primarily works for brands in tech, CPG, health/wellness, ecommerce, food & beverage, and hospitality. Its creator network and paid media expertise are aligned for these verticals. 

Does 9AM run ads on platforms besides YouTube?

9AM can also activate and optimize campaigns on social media platforms like Meta, TikTok, and Snapchat, as well as programmatic display and connected TV. It can support YouTube advertising as a standalone strategy and as part of a broader digital paid media program. 

When you are responsible for scaling paid acquisition, producing another ad is rarely the hardest part. The real challenge is building a creative testing system that turns every experiment into a reusable decision. 

Without that system, your team can launch more creative, increase ad spend, and collect endless performance data. Yet you may still struggle to explain why an idea worked, what caused the improvement, or whether the success can be repeated. 

Unfortunately, this measurement gap is widespread. According to Marketing Week’s 2023 survey, 8 in 10 respondents identified creative quality as a key driver of effectiveness. But only 57.3% said they had an analysis in place to measure it. 

And not much has changed in the years since, as more recent research from Marketing Week put that number even lower at 46.2%. 

This disconnect matters because creative directly influences attention, engagement, conversion, and acquisition costs. It deserves the same level of discipline you already apply to targeting, bidding, and budget allocation. 

And that starts with reliable creative testing solutions, coupled with a solid creative strategy. Together, they can turn every result into a better decision for your next test. 

How Creative Testing Actually Improves Performance

Creative testing helps you make better decisions before your team commits significant production time and media spend. 

A weak testing process simply tells you which ad performed best. A stronger system goes deeper. It shows you which audience insights, messages, formats, and creative choices are most likely to influence customer behavior. 

Kantar reports that digital advertisements with high creative quality can generate up to 2.5 times the sales of low-quality creative. 

Creative testing improves ad performance in several connected ways:

• It helps you allocate budget toward evidence-backed ideas rather than internal preferences.
• It reveals which messages resonate with different customer groups, strengthening audience segmentation.
• It separates attention problems from persuasion and purchase problems.
• It gives production teams clearer direction about what to preserve, remove, or expand.
• It turns successful ideas into repeatable creative territories instead of one-off advertisements.

However, you only get the full value when testing happens consistently. Sporadic experiments may produce occasional winners, but they rarely create a reliable body of knowledge. 

According to Neil Patel, continuous testing produces a higher return on investment (ROI). 

We have seen this in our three-year partnership with Genomelink. We built a multi-format creative production and testing framework focused on conversion and growth. As part of that system, our team consistently produced more than 70 assets each month across 6 formats. 

The main purpose was not to find one winning creative. We wanted to learn which angles, elements, and channels consistently led to higher conversions and lower acquisition costs.  And through that well-tuned testing system, we reduced CAC costs by 77% over the partnership period. 

Why Traditional Creative Testing Falls Short

Many marketers use creative testing to identify a winning ad, but their process does not explain what actually drove the result. That may support a short-term campaign goal, but it gives your team very little knowledge to reuse. 

Short-term gains are good for specific campaign goals, but when you’re looking at a multi-million-dollar paid media budget, finding a winning creative for a Meta ad simply won’t cut it. 

Let’s look at where and how creative testing fails: 

1. Testing Without a Clear Hypothesis

Every test should answer a specific question rather than compare several ads and see what happens. 

Even Google’s own guidance for video experiments recommends starting with a clear hypothesis. The hypothesis should define what you expect to learn and influence the creative concepts you produce. 

For example, “launch three customer videos” describes an activity, but it does not explain what you expect to learn.

A stronger hypothesis would be:

“Showing the product solving the customer’s main frustration within the first three seconds will increase qualified clicks from problem-aware shoppers.”

The hypothesis should guide the hook, message, format, and audience before the creative brief is finalized. Otherwise, your team may end up testing loosely connected ads and drawing conclusions that the experiment was never designed to support. 

2. Changing Too Many Variables at Once

When the opening visual, creator, offer, headline, video length, and call-to-action all change, you cannot identify which element influenced the outcome. 

At 9AM, we change only one variable at a time because simultaneous changes make the result difficult to interpret. 

Several elements may have contributed to the outcome, or one may have driven most of the impact. The data cannot tell you which. 

This doesn’t mean every experiment must be narrowly controlled. In the early stages, you can test very different creative concepts against each other. However, once you identify a promising direction, use A/B testing to isolate individual elements across your ad variations.

3. Evaluating Ads Before Enough Data Is Available

Early results can be misleading because a small number of purchases or high-value orders can distort the outcome. 

For some Google Ads experiments, Google recommends running the test for at least 4 to 6 weeks and discarding the first 7 days of data to account for ramp-up. 

Our team applies the same principle to paid social creative testing. We wait until the test has enough stable data before deciding which ad performed better. 

4. Failing to Document and Reuse Creative Insights

Even valuable findings disappear when they remain inside dashboards, presentation decks, or Slack conversations. Teams then repeat failed experiments, revisit disproven assumptions, and brief new creators without the benefit of previous evidence.

We usually record the findings of each test in a searchable Airtable or Notion database, or in a dedicated creative intelligence platform. For each test, we document the hypothesis, variables, audience, asset links, results, confidence level, observations, and recommended next step. 

This is also important for turning creative testing into a repeatable system rather than just scaling the winning ad. Even the latter approach has limits because at some point, the creative fatigue will set in. But if you have well-documented knowledge, you can apply it to the next set of creatives. 

How To Build an Effective Creative Testing System 

The best creative testing system, particularly for enterprise-level campaigns, starts with establishing goals, developing a solid hypothesis, creating a scalable workflow, and turning findings into repeatable assets that are destined to do well from the get-go. 

The following framework can help you build one: 

Step 1: Establish Clear Creative Testing Goals

Before your team develops a brief or produces an asset, define the decision the experiment must support. But don’t be vague. 

A useful goal identifies the business outcome, funnel stage, test type, audience, and success criterion.

For example, a mobile app team could test whether demonstrating the product within the opening seconds produces more qualified installs among first-time prospects. 

We recommend matching the goal to the customer’s position in the funnel:

Arla Foods provides a useful example of choosing an outcome that matched the campaign’s purpose. The company did not judge its native YouTube Shorts through views alone. They used Brand Lift studies to measure changes in awareness and ad recall 

In one experiment, ad-recall lift increased from 3% with its business-as-usual approach to 9% after native Shorts were introduced. Across other tests, recall was two to four times higher than previous benchmarks, and the Shorts approach produced twice the awareness lift of the control setup.

Your objective should also determine the type of experiment you run: 

1. Exploration tests compare substantially different ideas when you do not yet know which message or creative direction deserves investment.
2. Validation tests place a promising idea against a control to confirm that the initial result was repeatable.
3. Optimization tests isolate smaller execution choices after the underlying direction has shown potential.
4. Scaling tests determine whether the result holds when you increase reach, broaden the audience, or change the delivery conditions.

When you keep these purposes separate, it helps you interpret results more fairly. An ambitious concept may need refinement before it can outperform a heavily optimized control. An early win may also need further validation before you increase spend.

Step 2: Develop Testable Creative Hypotheses

A creative hypothesis turns an audience insight into a statement that can be supported or rejected by evidence. It should define what you are changing, why the change may matter, who you expect to respond, and which outcome will guide the next decision. 

Each hypothesis should connect directly to the testing goal you defined in the previous step. 

Here’s an example:

For first-time shoppers who worry that the product will not fit properly, showing three customers with different body types using the product within the first five seconds will increase product-page visits and buying intent compared with a lifestyle-only opening, without increasing acquisition cost.

This statement contains four essential components:

• Audience: Identifies whose behavior you expect to change.
• Message: Connects the test to a documented motivation, objection, or desired outcome.
• Treatment: Explains what the customer will see or hear.
• Expected outcome: Defines how you will evaluate the result.

Audience insight should shape the execution. Review how customers interact with current campaigns, where they lose interest, which objections appear repeatedly, and what previous tests have revealed. 

This groundwork matters most during concept testing because you are comparing different persuasive ideas. You are not simply changing a color, headline, or opening line. 

A footwear brand, for instance, might compare a comfort concept, a durability concept, and a personal-style concept. Once one direction shows promise, the team can create narrower creative variants that isolate the hook, creator, proof point, offer, or visual style.

New Look’s TikTok Catalog Ads experiment shows how a clear hypothesis creates an interpretable result. The retailer tested whether a carousel + video strategy could outperform its video-only control. The test treatment opened with a video and then allowed customers to browse several linked products in a carousel. 

TikTok reports that the treatment generated 61% higher ROAS, a 32% higher conversion rate, and a 54% higher click-through rate than the control. The result supported a specific creative-and-commerce treatment; it did not prove that carousels will outperform videos for every retailer, audience, or campaign.

Before launching a hypothesis, we always check it against these five questions:

1. Is it grounded in customer, behavioral, or historical evidence?
2. Does it identify a meaningful creative difference?
3. Can the expected outcome be measured?
4. Is there a suitable control or comparison?
5. Will either possible result change what the team does next?

That final question is critical. If your team would make the same decision whether the treatment wins or loses, the experiment is not worth consuming production time or budget.

Step 3: Choose the Right Creative Testing Framework

A useful framework matches the type of experiment to the question you need to answer. Without this classification, teams end up comparing fundamentally different ideas, minor execution changes, formats, and audiences in the same test, and then struggle to determine what caused the result.

For most creative strategists and advertisers, the following four types of creative testing provide distinct outcomes: 

Concept-Level Testing

Concept-level testing compares fundamentally different creative ideas, messages, emotional angles, or value propositions. It can be suitable when the product or service has various benefits, and you want to find which one sticks the best.  

For example, a meal-delivery brand might test convenience, cost savings, healthier eating, and family connection as separate concepts. 

The purpose is to identify which broad direction resonates most strongly with the audience before investing in multiple executions. Because several elements may differ between treatments, this type of testing reveals which concept deserves further development. It doesn’t focus on individual elements or details. 

Variable-Level Testing

Variable-level testing isolates one component within a promising concept, such as the opening hook, headline, creator, product demonstration, offer, proof point, visual treatment, or call-to-action. The remaining elements should stay as consistent as possible so you can attribute any meaningful change to the variable being tested. 

This approach helps refine a validated idea and provides more precise guidance for future advertisements. 

Format Testing

Format testing compares how the same central message performs across different creative formats, such as creator-led videos, product demonstrations, testimonials, static images, carousels, animations, and founder-led advertisements. 

The audience, value proposition, and offer remain consistent (wherever possible). This allows you to determine whether the method of presentation, not a different message, is influencing attention, engagement, or purchasing behavior.

Audience-Message Testing

Audience-message testing examines which messages resonate with specific audience segments or levels of awareness. 

The same product may appeal to different customers for different reasons. When you match distinct messages to documented audience needs, you can identify which combinations improve relevance and avoid relying on one generic ad for every prospect. 

This, in turn, helps you target a specific audience with a creative ad that’s most likely to impact them. 

Step 4: Build a Scalable Creative Production Workflow

A scalable workflow does not simply produce more advertisements. It produces clearly differentiated experiments on a predictable schedule, while preserving enough consistency for your team to interpret the results.

4.1 Create Structured Creative Briefs

Begin each production cycle with a structured brief. The brief should be short enough to use but specific enough to prevent writers, designers, and creators from interpreting the assignment in entirely different ways.

Include:

• The intended audience and funnel stage
• The customer evidence behind the idea
• The hypothesis being tested
• The test type (concept, variable, format, or audience insight)
• Specifics on what to test (like central message, product claim, offer, CTA, etc.)
• The elements that must remain constant
• The primary result and decision rule
• Mandatory brand, legal, and platform requirements

4.2 Use Modular Creative Production

Modular production lets your team reuse validated components without having to start from an empty timeline. Capture and organize interchangeable elements like opening hooks, customer statements, proof points, voiceovers, product close-ups, and feature explanations. 

A single creator video session, for example, could produce five openings, three demonstrations, two proof sections, and two endings. 

Those components may support several combinations, but that does not mean your team should assemble every possible version. Each variation should communicate a coherent idea and answer a specific testing question. 

For example, suppose a skincare brand wants to test whether clinical proof or customer experience is more persuasive. The team can keep the creator, product demonstration, offer, and closing sequence constant while replacing only the proof module:

• Treatment A uses a dermatologist explanation.
• Treatment B uses before-and-after customer evidence.
• The control uses the existing product-benefit explanation.

After the proof direction is validated, the team can produce additional video edits that test its placement, length, or wording. This sequence generates more useful evidence than releasing 20 loosely related cuts at once.

4.3 Develop a Consistent Production Cadence and Quality Control

Set a recurring creative production schedule instead of requesting new assets only after performance begins to decline. 

Your production cycle may run weekly, every two weeks, or monthly. What matters is that research, briefing, production, approval, launch, and analysis work as connected stages rather than separate requests. 

Also, leave some capacity for urgent responses, seasonal opportunities, and unexpected declines. 

In our creative team, we typically leave 10%-20% of production capacity uncommitted rather than scheduling every designer or editor at full utilization. 

Most importantly, don’t let speed and volume hit quality. Every creative asset used in the experiment should meet established quality standards plus any other platform-specific requirements. 

Quality control should cover:

• Message accuracy
• Product and pricing accuracy
• Brand consistency
• Audio clarity
• Caption accuracy
• Mobile readability
• Safe zones and aspect ratios
• Destination URL
• Tracking parameters
• Usage rights and expiration dates
• File naming and version status

4.4 Define Team Roles and Responsibilities

Scaling becomes difficult when everyone contributes, but nobody owns the handoff. Therefore, we suggest assigning one accountable owner to each stage:

You can use workflow rules to handle administrative steps like: 

• Creating tasks from approved briefs
• Notifying reviewers when a version is ready
• Flagging overdue approvals
• Updating statuses after sign-off
• Sending approved files to the asset library
• Recording the final delivery date

Plus, do not let the system automatically approve claims, determine whether two concepts are meaningfully different, or decide that an asset should be scaled solely because one early indicator improved. Human judgment remains necessary for strategic relevance, brand risk, customer sensitivity, and interpretation.

A completed workflow should produce more than a folder of approved assets. Each experiment package should contain the brief, asset versions, ownership records, approval history, launch details, and repository tags. 

This record creates a clear link between the original audience insight, the creative execution, and the final result. 

Step 5: Measure Everything for Contextual Understanding

Your primary metric tells you whether the test achieved its intended outcome. And supporting metrics help you understand why it succeeded or failed. 

Review performance across the full customer journey rather than judging the creative through one isolated number. 

• Attention metrics such as thumb-stop rate, hook rate, video hold rate, and average watch time show whether the advertisement earns and retains attention. 
• Engagement and traffic metrics, including click-through rate, cost per click, landing page view rate, and engagement rate, reveal whether that attention translates into qualified interest.
• Conversion metrics like conversion rate, cost per acquisition, ROAS, and revenue per impression indicate whether the creative generates commercial value.

Keep the success metric you selected in Step 1 as the main measure for the experiment. Treat the remaining metrics as diagnostic signals that help explain the outcome. 

For example, strong impressions and clicks followed by weak landing-page engagement may indicate a disconnect between the advertisement and the destination, while strong attention but poor conversion can point to weak proof, pricing, or offer communication. 

Step 6: Maintain a Creative Learning Repository

To truly make your creative tests into a repeatable system, create a searchable repository that connects each hypothesis with its audience, control, creative variants, performance data, and final decision. 

This is particularly beneficial for agencies that can lean back on that knowledge across different campaigns, platforms, and clients. 

At 9AM, we document what changed, what remained constant, the primary metric, the result, and the recommended next action. 

We also tag assets consistently by concept, message, format, creator, hook, audience segment, and outcome. This makes it much easier for strategists, analysts, media buyers, and product teams to find relevant insights before planning the next campaign. 

Plus, our team preserves losing, inconclusive, and invalid experiments because they can expose weak messages, unsuitable formats, tracking problems, or ideas worth refining.

Over time, this repository helps prevent repeated mistakes and turns individual campaign results into reusable creative intelligence. 

Creative Testing Solutions and Tools Marketers Prefer

Your first layer of ad creative testing should usually be the experimentation tools already available inside the media platforms where the advertisements will run. They use real delivery and behavioral outcomes, require little additional integration, and help you determine whether a treatment improves results under live auction conditions.

For instance, Google Ads Video Experiments supports a basic two-arm test in which the video creative is the sole variable, while its custom setup allows up to 10 experiment arms. 

Depending on the campaign and account, you can evaluate measures such as click-through rate, conversion rate, cost per conversion, view rate, and Brand Lift. 

In the paid social space, Meta Ads Manager provides native A/B testing that divides audiences into statistically comparable groups, helping you compare variables without relying on overlapping delivery. 

You can use it to test creative, audiences, placements, or campaign approaches, while Meta Conversion Lift is better suited to determining whether advertising caused incremental action. 

For high-cost campaigns, early concepts, or questions that native experiments can’t diagnose, consider one of the following dedicated creative testing tools.

1. Behavio

Behavio combines respondent research, randomized control trials, implicit-association methods, and AI-predicted attention heatmaps. It can test ideas, storyboards, text, static designs, audio, and completed videos. 

It’s best for behavioral pre-testing before production or launch. 

Behavio states that each standard creative test uses a unique representative sample of at least 500 respondents, while its attention model is trained on 20,000 eye-tracking experiments; published delivery options range from approximately three to seven days. 

2. Kantar LINK+ and LINK AI

Kantar’s LINK suite is suited to organizations that need established research methods, cross-market norms, and diagnostic brand metrics alongside commercial-impact predictions.

LINK+ supports testing from early ideas and storyboards through finished television, digital, print, outdoor, influencer, and brand-experience work. On the other hand, LINK AI is intended for faster screening of high creative volumes. 

LINK+ can return results in as few as six hours, and its marketplace solutions operate in more than 80 countries. This breadth makes it viable for global brands that need comparable standards across markets. However, it may be more research-intensive than a performance team needs for inexpensive weekly iterations.

2. Neurons AI

Neurons is designed for rapid predictive evaluation of advertisements before launch. Its AI capabilities analyze attention, engagement, memory, and the likely distribution of visual focus, producing heatmaps and creative diagnostics within seconds rather than requiring a conventional research field period. 

This makes the platform useful when a team must screen many layouts, opening frames, product images, or campaign variants before selecting a smaller group for live testing. 

Neurons says its models are powered by a large neuroscience database, but an AI prediction is still an estimate based on learned patterns, not proof that an advertisement will achieve a particular CPA or sales lift in your account. 

In-House, Agency, or Hybrid: Which Creative Testing Model Works Best? 

Continuous creative testing at scale requires resources, which your marketing or design team may or may not have. Generative AI has made testing relatively simple and faster, but as mentioned earlier, human oversight is absolutely essential for it to become a learning system. 

You have three options for creative testing: having your team conduct it independently, outsourcing to an agency, or using a hybrid model in which internal teams and agencies share the work. 

In-House Model

An in-house model works best when you have steady testing volume, strong internal expertise, and direct access to customer and campaign data. It offers faster collaboration, greater control, and better retention of creative insights, but it can become expensive or repetitive when specialist skills and outside perspectives are limited.

Agency-Supported Model

An agency-supported model is recommended if you need additional strategy, production capacity, research expertise, or access to specialized creators. It can expand your capabilities quickly. 

However, it only works if the external team has access to enough data and insight into previous campaigns, briefs, measurement standards, and any learning repository. 

In most cases, it makes sense to partner with a full-service agency that can also handle paid media and analytics, as these are intrinsically connected to creative testing. 

Hybrid model

A hybrid agency model for creative testing provides the best balance. Your internal team can own customer research, priorities, measurement, and final decisions, while external partners support complex production, specialist research, or temporary capacity. 

How Creative Testing Compounds Over Time

Creative testing compounds when every experiment improves the next decision. Customer research produces stronger hypotheses; controlled tests generate reliable performance data; and documented findings improve future briefs, creative performance, production priorities, and budget allocation. 

Over time, this cycle gives you more than a collection of winning ads. You build a searchable understanding of which concepts, messages, formats, and audience combinations work under specific conditions. 

Automation can accelerate variations, analysis, and feedback, but the advantage comes from applying what you learn throughout the campaign lifecycle. 

This is something we’ve learned over the years here at 9AM. 

As a data and testing-obsessed performance marketing agency, we’ve made creative testing a core part of our strategy and paid media apparatus. That’s because our focus is always to deliver the maximum impact at the lowest cost. And that doesn’t happen without experimenting with different creatives and audience segments. 

If your marketing team needs expertise or just extra hands for creative testing, 9AM can help. Book a free creative testing strategy call.  

FAQs

What are the different types of creative testing in marketing?

Creative testing in marketing measures which ads generate the best business results before scaling spend. The main types include A/B testing, multivariate testing, concept testing, message testing, visual testing, audience testing, placement testing, and offer testing. 

What is the best Facebook ads creative testing strategy?

The best Facebook ads creative testing strategy tests one creative variable at a time while keeping audience, budget, placement, and optimization constant. Start with broad concept testing, then test headlines, primary text, images, videos, hooks, and calls to action. Scale only creatives that achieve a statistically meaningful improvement in ROAS, CPA, or conversion rate.

What are the best creative testing solutions?

The best creative testing solutions combine experimentation, automation, and performance measurement. The best starting point is the testing capabilities within ad platforms like Google Ads, Meta Ads, and TikTok Ads. For deeper, predictive analytics into creative performance, tools like Behavio, Kantar, and Neurons AI can be used. 

How does 9AM test creative for paid social?

9AM team tests paid social creative through a structured framework that first validates broader concepts and then isolates specific variables before increasing ad spend. We typically begin with several creative angles, then compare hooks, visuals, messages, formats, and calls to action while keeping targeting and campaign settings as consistent as possible. 

How to measure ad creative performance?

You can measure ad creative performance by tracking click-through rate (CTR), conversion rate, cost per acquisition (CPA), return on ad spend (ROAS), cost per click (CPC), engagement rate, video watch time, thumb-stop rate, and frequency (depending on format). Compare each creative against the same audience, budget, and attribution settings to identify which ones do better.

Rising customer acquisition costs and crowded paid social feeds have made creator whitelisting more valuable for US brands. It combines creator credibility with the targeting, testing, and budget control of paid media across TikTok Spark Ads and Meta partnership ads.

In fact, TikTok reports that creator content promoted through Spark Ads generated a 159% higher engagement rate than noncreator content among its North American clients.

However, strong performance across TikTok and Meta still depends on suitable creators, clear permissions, paid usage rights, effective content, accurate targeting, and continuous optimization.

Today, we’ll compare 10 influencer whitelisting agencies in the US. Each agency can support key parts of the process, including creator sourcing, content production, authorization, paid amplification, creative testing, reporting, and campaign management.

So, let's get started!

In a hurry? Jump straight to the influencer whitelisting agency comparison. 

What Qualified an Influencer Whitelisting Agency to Be on This List?

We didn’t include general influencer agencies just because they mention TikTok on their service pages. Each agency on this list was evaluated against criteria that are specific to US brands running Spark Ads and creator whitelisting campaigns.

Here’s what we considered: 

1. Proven TikTok Spark Ads experience: Clear experience planning and managing Spark Ads, including creator authorization, paid amplification, campaign setup, and optimization.
2. Creator whitelisting and usage rights: Reliable processes for securing creator permissions, paid usage rights, and broader content licensing where required.
3. Access to US creators: Established relationships with US-based creators and an understanding of regional trends, consumer behavior, and FTC disclosure requirements.
4. Paid media capabilities: Experience turning creator content into performance ads through audience targeting, budget allocation, creative testing, retargeting, and campaign optimization.
5. Measurement and reporting: Reporting that goes beyond views and likes to include metrics such as conversion rate, CPA, ROAS, revenue, and creative performance.
6. Documented client work: Case studies, client examples, testimonials, reviews, or measurable campaign results that support the agency’s claims.
7. Campaign scalability: The ability to manage multiple creators, approval rounds, usage rights, content assets, and ad variations at the same time.

TikTok Spark Ads and Creator Whitelisting Agencies Worth Considering in the US 

We’ve shortlisted the following US agencies based on their creator networks, whitelisting workflows, paid media expertise, and documented campaign experience. 

Ubiquitous

• Location: Los Angeles, CA
• Notable clients: Amazon, Disney, Lyft, BlueChew, GNC, Crocs
• Strength: Complete influencer campaigns with strategy, outreach, production, and paid amplification

Ubiquitous is an influencer marketing agency that provides end-to-end campaign solutions for TikTok, Instagram, and YouTube. For TikTok, in particular, they have a network of over 40,000 creators with billions in collective following. 

The agency works across creator sourcing, campaign strategy, content briefing, influencer management, paid amplification, and reporting, with a clear focus on turning creator content into measurable campaign assets. 

Its case studies show a strong mix of creator-led storytelling and performance marketing. For Wienerschnitzel, Ubiquitous worked with 47 creators and reported 42 million impressions, 74,000 website clicks, a $0.72 CPC, and a 6.49% engagement rate. The paid TikTok Spark Ads portion of that campaign reached 8.3 million unique users, with an average CPM of $2.41 and a CPC of $0.90. 

9AM

• Location: New York, NY
• Notable clients: Booksy, Hurom, Hopper, NielsenIQ, Prose
• Strength: Extensive US creator network and advanced performance-driven targeting capabilities

9AM is a New York-based performance marketing agency and a certified Meta and TikTok partner. It combines creator-led campaigns with paid media strategy across both platforms, including TikTok Spark Ads and Meta partnership ads. 

Speaking of targeting, measurement is a major part of 9AM’s approach. The agency looks at previous campaign results and UGC performance to refine audiences, test creative, and adjust delivery through TikTok Ads Manager. Over time, these insights can help improve conversion efficiency and identify which creator assets deserve more spend. 

The agency helped EVRY Jewels grow revenue from $6 million to over $100 million through strategic influencer partnerships, content at scale, and paid social ads such as Spark Ads. The team created a rapid testing system that produced high-performance assets for each ad iteration. 

9AM (as part of Fieldtrip) has proven work experience across SaaS, CPG, food & beverage, health & wellness, and mobile apps. 

The Influencer Marketing Factory

• Location: Miami, FL & New York, NY
• Notable clients: Meta, Coinbase, Rakuten, Palmer’s, Square
• Strength: Influencer whitelisting at scale for enterprise-grade brands

The Influencer Marketing Factory is a US-based influencer marketing specialist that offers TikTok influencer marketing, paid social, and UGC content managed as one connected campaign. 

The agency runs complete campaigns across TikTok, Instagram, YouTube, and other social media platforms. This includes creator sourcing, influencer strategy, content creation, campaign execution, tracking, and reporting. 

According to the agency, it has delivered more than 1,000 campaigns, generated over three billion impressions, and tracked more than $150 million in client revenue. Its experience spans beauty, food, travel, CPG, and several Fortune 500 brands. 

Its work with Hyundai also shows that it can handle influencer campaigns at scale. For the TikTok campaign, the agency sourced creators who helped the brand reach 5.8 million people. 

Neo Reach

• Location: Orlando, FL
• Notable clients: NVIDIA, Netflix, TikTok, Snickers, Airbnb
• Strength: Influencer whitelisting campaigns supported by data-centric tech. 

NeoReach is recommended for brands that want influencer marketing backed by data, platform technology, and managed campaign execution. The Orlando-based agency works with large brands and Fortune 500 companies. Its services include influencer strategy, creator sourcing, paid media, reporting, and whitelisting across social media platforms. 

Although primarily an influencer marketing agency, Neo Reach has a diverse range of capabilities in this space. For instance, it also undertakes social media management and talent management. And as for industries, it covers 12 verticals, all of which are led by seniors. 

The agency has helped the History Channel launch its TikTok account by hiring 7 US influencers. The program got over 12 million views. 

HireInfluence

• Location: Austin, TX, New York, NY, and Los Angeles, CA
• Notable Clients: Adidas, Coca-Cola, eBay, Honda, Microsoft, Target, Warner Bros., NFL
• Strength: Full creator whitelisting support for large-scale consumer brands and premium creators. 

HireInfluence is an award-winning influencer agency that’s also one of the earlier players (began in 2011). It has over 15 years of experience running influencer collaborations and campaigns. The agency offers a full range of services, including strategy, creative talent sourcing, content concepting, paid media, content amplification, production, and FTC compliance.

Its work with McDonald’s shows its ability to coordinate campaigns across a diverse creator group. According to HireInfluence, the hashtag campaign generated 1.7 million impressions.  

Much of the agency’s portfolio focuses on awareness and engagement. However, its paid media and content amplification capabilities also make it relevant for brands planning influencer whitelisting or conversion-focused creator campaigns. Its strongest fit appears to be TikTok campaigns built around creator storytelling and broad campaign reach. 

Also, the minimum project size for this agency is around $75k, so it’s only a good fit for large brands. 

Socially Powerful

• Location: New York, NY (Global presence)
• Notable Clients: Adidas, Coca-Cola, eBay, Honda, Microsoft, Target, Warner Bros., NFL
• Strength: Influencer and paid social expertise powered by proprietary discovery platform. 

Socially Powerful is a global influencer marketing agency, best for brands that want creator marketing and paid social to operate as one integrated growth strategy. The agency offers TikTok influencer marketing, including creator discovery, audience matching, campaign strategy, content production, paid media buying, Spark Ads amplification, and performance reporting. 

Its proprietary AI platform, ARIA, helps identify creators based on audience quality, demographics, interests, and brand fit rather than follower count alone. 

The agency’s work for Azarro fragrance used 20 creators on TikTok and has a 59 million strong reach. It’s good at producing native content with the right influencers, with consumer products as its strength. 

MuteSix

• Location: Culver City, CA
• Notable Clients: Dave, Pinsy, Twillory, Healthy Spot, Ring, Therabody
• Strength: Paid media expertise for retail and ecommerce-focused US brands.  

MuteSix is a performance marketing agency with experience across TikTok paid media, creator content, creative production, and measurement. As a TikTok Agency Partner, it works with brand-aligned creators to develop native content and amplify it through paid campaigns. 

It’s a good fit for ecommerce and DTC brands that want creator-led TikTok ads managed alongside broader services like paid search, Meta advertising, conversion optimization, and advanced analytics.

Its work with apparel brand Twillory shows how creator content can support wider performance goals. After seeing strong results from influencer whitelisting, MuteSix expanded the approach and adapted more of the brand’s content into UGC-style ads. According to the agency, Twillory saw a 58% increase in new customers and 50% overall growth. 

Linqia

• Location: San Francisco, CA
• Notable Clients: Instacart, Madly, Cuisinart, Albertsons
• Strength: Data-powered, large-scale influencer whitelisting campaigns with measurable impact 

Linqia is a creator agency for enterprise brands seeking influencer marketing backed by data science, structured campaign management, and paid amplification. Its platform combines creator discovery, audience insights, fraud detection, content performance data, campaign optimization, and end-to-end measurement. On the other hand, its service team handles strategy and execution. 

For TikTok campaigns, Linqia can manage organic creator content and extend its reach through Spark Ads and whitelisting. The agency is particularly well suited to large consumer brands that need creative storytelling tied to measurable brand and business outcomes, but also take compliance seriously. 

In a TikTok campaign for One A Day Vitamins, Linqia worked with creators on a branded dance challenge, tested multiple creative variations, and converted the original creator content into paid ads. The campaign’s highest-performing stitched video generated a 16.7% click-through rate.

Movers + Shakers

• Location: Santa Monica, CA
• Notable Clients: e.l.f., Hasbro, Dr. Squatch, Netflix, Mattel
• Strength: Millennial and Gen-Z-led storytelling and cultural momentum for viral campaigns in the US

Movers+Shakers is a social-first creative agency known for helping brands become part of TikTok culture rather than simply placing ads around it. Its services span social strategy, creator and influencer campaigns, platform-native content, and community management. The agency says it has guided hundreds of brands onto TikTok since 2019 and generated more than 250 billion views across its campaigns. 

As there’s a strong focus on younger generations in its work and creator network, it’s great for brands that want to build awareness through TikTok trends, original music, creator participation, and native features like Duet and Stitch.

Its best-known work includes e.l.f. Cosmetics’ #eyeslipsface campaign, which inspired nearly five million user-generated videos. 

Monster Agency

• Location: Dallas, TX
• Notable Clients: Bumpbox, Eleven10, Barbell Medicine, Super Jeweler
• Strength: All formats of TikTok ads with a focus on high ROI

Monster Agency is a TikTok Ads agency that’s based in Dallas, Texas. It covers virtually all mainstream paid social channels, including TikTok. In fact, it’s a certified TikTok Marketing Partner. It can run all types of TikTok ads, including In-Feed, TopView, and Spark Ads. 

The agency says its clients, on average, see a 2.78x return on ad spending. That’s evident from the case studies, too. In one instance (Hellenbach), the average ROAS was 4.87x. 

It can be good for ecommerce, SaaS, and lead-generation businesses that want to integrate TikTok into a broader performance strategy, including landing pages, email and SMS marketing, and conversion rate optimization. 

Since it’s not an influencer agency, it’s best for brands that already have organic creator content published on TikTok and want to run ads with it.

Why Influencer Whitelisting (like TikTok Spark Ads) Works So Well in the US

Influencer whitelisting aligns with how many Americans discover and evaluate products online. US consumers rarely buy after seeing one polished brand ad. They usually want to see how a product looks in real life, what people are saying in the comments, and whether a creator they trust genuinely recommends it.

In fact, the Harris Poll found that 43% of US adults consider influencer input when making purchases. Pew Research also found that creator accounts make up about half of the accounts US TikTok users follow. So, brands have plenty of room to work with creators who already speak to specific interests, communities, age groups, and local markets. 

Whitelisted ads keep that creator connection intact. Spark Ads retain the original views, likes, comments, shares, profile link, and soundtrack. Meta partnership ads also keep the creator visible, so the content still feels connected to the person who made it.

This matters in a large and diverse market like the US. Brands can work with creators who understand specific cities, states, cultural groups, or customer interests instead of relying on one broad national message.

TikTok’s US data supports the format’s ability to hold attention. Spark Ads achieved a 134% higher completion rate and a 157% higher six-second view-through rate than standard In-Feed Ads. 

TikTok Spark Ads Agencies: Top 5 Comparison

Here are the five best agencies for running TikTok ads, especially Spark Ads, compared. 

9AM has the right combination of capabilities and experience to make influencer whitelisting campaigns and TikTok Spark Ads a success. Its creator network, paid social expertise, and data-first approach result in optimized, relevant, and native-feeling ads.  

Request a creator whitelisting strategy review to identify the right creators, content, and paid media setup for your next campaign. 

FAQs

What do influencers charge for whitelisting in the US?

Influencers in the US can charge a percentage (20 to 50%) of the original content fee for whitelisting, depending on audience size, campaign length, platform, and advertising spend. But some also charge a flat fee, which can be negotiated.

Is influencer whitelisting possible on Meta?

Yes. Influencer whitelisting is possible on Meta through Partnership Ads (formerly Branded Content Ads). Partnership Ads allow brands to run paid Facebook and Instagram campaigns using an influencer's identity after receiving creator authorization in Meta Business Suite or Meta Business Manager. 

What brands should consider using TikTok Sparks Ads in the US?

US brands should consider TikTok Spark Ads when creator content already plays a role in product discovery. They work best for products that need demonstrations, reviews, tutorials, or real-life use cases, such as beauty, apparel, food, fitness, pet care, and consumer electronics. 

How to pick a Spark Ads and whitelisting agency in the US?

Look for an agency that understands the US market, works with American creators, and knows how to manage paid social, usage rights, and FTC disclosures. Then check its past campaigns for clear results such as revenue growth, conversions, CPA, or ROAS. 

Reliable tracking powers campaign bidding, attribution, budget decisions, and revenue measurement. However, collecting accurate marketing data has become harder as browsers, privacy controls, and ad-blocking tools restrict traditional tracking methods. 

Traditional client-side tracking depends on a user’s browser successfully loading code and sending marketing signals. Ad blockers, privacy controls, connectivity failures, and shorter identifier lifespans can easily disrupt it.

Server-side tracking gives you more control over how those signals are collected and shared. Your organization can send selected events from a controlled server environment to the platforms used for advertising, analytics, and measurement. 

If you’re a paid media team leader, this guide will walk you through everything you need to know about server-side tracking. It explains how the architecture works, where it fits within your stack, and which platforms and tools you should consider. 

What Is Server-Side Tracking?

Server-side tracking collects, processes, and sends marketing data through a server environment your organization controls. This reduces the need to send every event directly from a visitor’s browser to external platforms. 

In a typical server-side tagging setup, your website sends an event to a controlled endpoint. A server container then validates, modifies, removes, or enriches the event before forwarding approved fields to platforms, like Google Analytics 4, Google Ads, or the Meta Conversions API.

Server-side tracking does not necessarily eliminate browser tracking. Most paid media teams begin with a hybrid model in which client-side tags still capture page interactions, while the server handles processing and onward transmission. 

A pure implementation can instead generate events directly from a backend, CRM, payment system, or ecommerce platform.

How Does Server-Side Tracking Work?

In server-side tracking, data collected from the user’s browser is sent to a server for cleaning and processing rather than going directly to a platform. 

Here’s a Google Tag Manager (GTM) implementation that shows exactly how server-side tracking happens: 

1. An interaction creates an event: A visitor submits a lead form, completes a purchase, or performs another action. The website may place information such as the event name, transaction value, currency, order ID, and consent state in the data layer.
2. The website sends the event to your tagging endpoint: Your web container or Google tag sends the request to a tagging server your organization controls. Teams commonly configure this through a path on the main domain or a dedicated subdomain. 
3. A client receives and interprets the request: Inside the GTM server container, a client claims the incoming request and converts its data into an event the container can process.
4. The container applies your data rules: Variables retrieve the required values, while triggers determine which tags should run. Transformations can remove sensitive fields, rename parameters, exclude unnecessary information, or restrict the data available to particular tags.
5. Approved data is forwarded to each platform: The container can send different versions of the same event to different destinations. For example, a confirmed ecommerce purchase might be forwarded to Google Analytics through the Google Analytics 4 Measurement Protocol or to Meta through its Conversions API.

Now, here’s how it works in light of a specific event. 

Consider a customer who clicks a paid social ad and completes an order. The browser may send an initial purchase event to your tagging endpoint. Your backend can then confirm the transaction using the actual order record and provide the final revenue value.

When browser and backend events describe the same purchase, your implementation must include a shared event or transaction ID. This allows advertising platforms to identify duplicate records instead of counting the order twice.

The server can then remove fields that are not required, apply the customer’s consent choices, and prepare an approved payload for each destination.

Insider tip: Treat the server as a controlled routing and validation layer, rather than a system that automatically forwards every available field. Each destination should receive only the information required for an approved measurement purpose. This can reduce unnecessary requests, limit infrastructure usage, and make ongoing governance easier. 

Why Server Tracking Matters in 2026: Cookie Limitations, Ad Blockers, and Privacy Regulations

Paid media signal loss is not the result of one policy change. It develops across several parts of the measurement environment: 

• Browser restrictions that limit cross-site tracking
• Ad blockers that prevent scripts and network requests from loading
• Shorter lifespans for browser identifiers
• Consent choices that reduce the data available to advertising platforms
• Privacy laws that govern how personal data can be collected, processed, and shared
• Breaks between website activity, CRM records, and final revenue outcomes

These limitations create inconsistent attribution records. Two customers may follow a similar path and complete the same conversion, yet one journey may contain far fewer measurable touchpoints. 

The situation is also more nuanced than the widely predicted ‘cookieless future.’ 

Google Chrome hasn’t yet phased out third-party cookies, as many feared. But it’s not guaranteed that it won’t in the future. 

For paid media teams, this means cookie deprecation is not a single deadline you can plan around. It’s an ongoing fragmentation of browser behavior, platform APIs, consent signals, and identity availability.

Other browsers already apply stronger restrictions. For instance, Apple’s Intelligent Tracking Prevention blocks all third-party cookies by default in Safari. 

These differences matter when a campaign has a long consideration cycle. 

Consider a prospect who clicks a search ad on Safari, returns eight days later through an email, submits a demo request, and becomes a qualified opportunity after another three weeks. A browser identifier may no longer reliably connect those stages. 

On the other hand, a controlled server integration can instead use the CRM record to send the qualified lead or closed revenue outcome back to the relevant platform. However, your team still needs: 

• The required campaign identifiers
• An appropriate legal basis
• Valid consent where required
• A reliable connection between the ad interaction and CRM record

Privacy regulation adds an equally important constraint. 

For example, under the General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR), regulators in the European Union (EU) can impose fines of up to €20 million or 4% of a company’s total annual worldwide turnover, depending on which amount is higher and the nature of the violation. 

Moving collection to a server doesn’t remove the transparency, purpose limitation, security, or lawful basis requirements.

What Are the Benefits of Server-Side Tracking? 

The main value of server-side tracking is that it provides paid media teams with a more reliable and controlled way to integrate website activity, backend systems, and advertising platforms. It also addresses the limitations of client-side tracking, like browser cookie restrictions. 

Let’s discuss these benefits in more detail: 

1. Bypass Limitations of Client-Side Tracking

Client-side tracking can fail when scripts are blocked, browsers restrict identifiers, or users leave before a request completes. 

Server-generated events are more dependable for confirmed outcomes such as purchases, qualified leads, renewals, and booked appointments. These events can come directly from your CRM, ecommerce platform, booking system, or payment processor. 

Pro tip: A hybrid setup is usually the most practical approach. Use browser events for immediate customer behavior and server events for verified business results. Shared event IDs are essential to prevent browser and server records from being counted twice.

2. More Data Control

A server-side layer lets you validate, remove, enrich, or block fields before sending data to Google Analytics, Meta, or other ad platforms.

This gives your team more control over: 

• Personal data
• Consent status
• Event quality
• Parameters shared with each platform
• The destinations that receive each event

For example, you can send order value and currency to an advertising platform while excluding internal margin data or unnecessary customer fields. This supports stronger data governance, but it also requires clear access controls, retention rules, and technical ownership.

3. Better Page Speed

Moving some tracking and vendor communication away from the browser can reduce the number of JavaScript tags. It may also limit duplicate network requests. 

This can improve page performance and user experience on landing pages with large or poorly managed tag setups. 

For instance, in a Flowhub study, Cumulative Layout Shift decreased from 0.635 to 0.154 after server-side tracking was introduced. Cumulative Layout Shift is a Core Web Vitals metric that measures visual stability. 

The improvement is not automatic. You may still need client-side tags for clicks, form interactions, and page navigation, so teams should compare request counts, Core Web Vitals, conversion rate, and revenue before and after implementation.

Pro Tip: Use our landing page alignment guide to improve conversions. 

4. More Reliable Understanding of Conversions and Lifecycle Data

Server-side tracking helps connect early campaign actions with later business outcomes. Instead of optimizing only for form submissions or first purchases, you can send qualified leads, repeat orders, retained subscriptions, refunds, and closed revenue back to analytics and advertising systems.

This can improve marketing attribution, value-based bidding, and ROAS targets by helping platforms distinguish high-value customers from low-quality conversions. 

However, ad-platform attribution should still be checked against CRM, analytics, finance, and incrementality data rather than treated as the definitive source of truth.

Where Does Server-Side Tracking Fit in the Paid Media Stack?

Server-side tracking sits between your website, CRM, ecommerce platform, and advertising channels. Its role is to standardize approved events, enrich them with verified business data, and send the right information to each destination. But at a higher level, it can provide the right intelligence to scale paid media. 

Let’s explore how it can work for different marketing channels and events: 

• Meta Conversions API: Sends website, CRM, and offline events directly to Meta. It is usually most effective when used alongside the Meta Pixel, with matching event IDs to prevent duplicate conversions.
• Google Ads enhanced conversions: Uses hashed first-party customer information to improve conversion matching. It is especially useful when leads become qualified opportunities or sales after the initial website visit.
• Google Tag Manager server-side: Provides a central routing layer for validating, modifying, and distributing events. It is a practical choice for teams that already use Google Tag Manager and need more control over data flows.
• GA4 server-side tagging: Routes analytics events through a controlled server endpoint before they reach Google Analytics 4. This can improve governance, but it will not fix inconsistent event names or poor analytics design.
• TikTok Events API: Sends website, app, CRM, and offline outcomes directly to TikTok. Most advertisers should combine it with the TikTok Pixel and use consistent event IDs for deduplication.
• LinkedIn Conversions API: Connects B2B campaign activity with later outcomes such as qualified leads, sales meetings, opportunities, and closed revenue. It’s best for long sales cycles.
• CRM and CDP integrations: Systems such as Salesforce, HubSpot, Segment, and Klaviyo provide lifecycle and customer-value data that browser tracking cannot capture. The server-side layer then formats and distributes those outcomes to analytics and ad platforms.

The strongest setup combines browser behavior with verified backend outcomes. Client-side tags capture immediate interactions, while server-side connections provide the conversion and lifecycle data needed for better measurement and optimization.

Client-Side vs. Server-Side Tracking

The key difference is where event processing occurs. Client-side tagging runs in the visitor’s browser, while server-side tracking processes and distributes data through infrastructure controlled by your business. 

It’s important to note that consent is important for both types of tracking. Consent state must travel with the event so the server does not continue prohibited data collection after a user opts out. Server-side processing does not remove privacy-law obligations. 

Below, we have shared a simple differentiation between client- and server-side tracking: 

Again, in most cases, you’d want to use both. A hybrid setup combines the behavioral detail of browser tags with the reliability of server-generated business outcomes.

For example, Meta recommends using its Pixel and Conversions API together. When both connections send the same conversion, matching event names and IDs allow Meta to deduplicate the records rather than count two purchases.

At 9AM we usually use the browser to capture the initial interaction and the backend as the source of truth for the final outcome. 

A checkout page might record that a customer clicked “Place order,” while the server sends the purchase only after the payment processor confirms the transaction. This prevents declined payments or abandoned requests from being treated as revenue.

Server-Side Tracking Implementation Roadmap for Paid Media Teams 

Server-side tracking is usually more complex than client-side tracking. Paid media teams may need support from developers, analytics specialists, or an external partner when those skills are not available in-house.

This roadmap explains how paid search and paid social teams can plan and implement a server-side tracking setup.

Step 1: Audit the Current Tracking Setup

Start by documenting every pixel, tag, event, conversion action, consent banner, CRM connection, analytics property, and attribution tool. 

Use Google Tag Assistant, GA4 DebugView, Meta Events Manager, TikTok Events Manager, and your browser’s developer tools to identify duplicate tags, missing parameters, inconsistent values, and requests that ignore the user’s consent state. 

GA4 DebugView displays collected events and user properties in real time when debug mode is enabled.

Your audit should produce a simple data collection framework showing:

• Where each event originates
• Which systems receive it
• Which fields are shared
• Who owns the event
• How long the data is retained

Also document your consent management platform, CRM field mappings, cookie policies, and any conversions imported from offline systems. 

Step 2: Decide Which Business Outcomes Matter

Choose outcomes that represent genuine commercial progress, even when they are harder to track than clicks or form submissions. 

For example, for an e-commerce team, confirmed purchases, repeat orders, margin, and refunds are more important. On the other hand, a B2B team might use qualified leads, sales meetings, accepted opportunities, and closed revenue.

Your tracking plan should reflect the outcomes your paid media campaigns are expected to influence. 

Also, assign each outcome a clear owner, definition, value, and source of truth. 

Step 3: Map the Event Schema

Create an event-naming taxonomy covering: 

• Event names
• Required parameters
• Identifiers
• Consent state
• Value and currency
• Order ID
• Advertising click IDs

Specify which system is the source of truth for every field. For example, the browser may provide page context, the payment system may confirm revenue, and the CRM may provide lead or opportunity status. 

Use one unique event ID when the browser and server send copies of the same conversion. Pass the same ID with both copies so the platform can identify and remove duplicates. 

Meta uses the event name and event ID to deduplicate matching Pixel and Conversions API events. TikTok also requires the same event ID across Pixel and Events API events for deduplication. 

Step 4: Choose the Technical Setup

Select the simplest architecture that satisfies your traffic, governance, and integration requirements. 

Your options may include:

• A GTM server container hosted on Google Cloud Run or App Engine
• A custom server-to-server integration
• A customer data platform such as Segment or Tealium
• A native ecommerce platform integration
• A managed server-side hosting provider

We will examine these options in more detail later in the guide. 

For GTM server-side, configure a first-party endpoint and move the container into production mode before sending live traffic. 

Google recommends at least three instances per container for redundancy. Its App Engine guidance indicates that autoscaling between three and six servers may handle approximately 50-200 requests per second, depending on the tags being executed. 

Do not treat the preview or test deployment as production infrastructure. Plan for monitoring and load balancing rather than treating the test deployment as production infrastructure.

Step 5: Implement Platform APIs

Prioritize platforms with sufficient spend and conversion volume to benefit from better signals.

As far as we’ve seen in the paid media space, common connections include:

• Meta Conversions API
• Google enhanced conversions
• TikTok Events API
• LinkedIn Conversions API
• Google Ads offline conversion imports
• CRM and ecommerce platform integrations

Pro tip: Always check current API requirements before launch. As of June 15, 2026, Google has moved relevant enhanced-conversion-for-leads and offline-conversion uploads toward the Data Manager API, with Google Ads API uploads blocked for developer tokens without approved legacy access.

Step 6: Test Deduplication and Data Quality

Run controlled test conversions and compare the browser request, server request, platform diagnostics, CRM record, and analytics result. 

Confirm that matching event IDs prevent double-counting and that value, currency, timestamps, consent status, and customer identifiers remain consistent.

Test failure scenarios as well, like declined payments, duplicate form submissions, refunds, missing click IDs, rejected consent, and server timeouts. 

All of this is important for data quality. That’s the main intention behind server-side tracking in many cases, so it makes sense to ensure there's no duplication in the data. 

Step 7: Monitor and Iterate

Create a recurring dashboard that tracks:

• Event coverage
• Browser and server event volume
• Deduplication rates
• Processing latency
• Match quality
• Rejected events
• Hosting and API errors
• Downstream conversion data

Compare these technical metrics with campaign performance, CRM revenue, and finance records before changing budgets or bidding strategies.

Review the implementation after major website releases, CRM changes, consent updates, and platform API migrations. Keep in mind, this is more of an operating system than a project, so it has to be maintained properly. 

Best Server-Side Tracking Tools

The best server-side tracking platform depends on your traffic volume, technical resources, privacy requirements, and whether you need only server-side hosting or a broader customer-data system. 

Google Tag Manager is the entry point for most marketers, but there are other dedicated platforms as well that are better if you want even more data and tech consolidation. 

Google Tag Manager (Server-Side)

Google Tag Manager is the most flexible starting point for teams already using GTM, GA4, and Google Ads. Its server container uses familiar tags, triggers, and variables, while supporting custom templates and deployment through Google Cloud Run, App Engine, Docker, or other infrastructure. 

Google recommends multiple instances for redundancy, so the real cost also includes cloud administration and monitoring. It’s best for teams with technical support that want control without purchasing a full CDP.

Stape

Stape simplifies GTM server-container deployment by providing managed infrastructure, logs, custom domain configuration, autoscaling, and paid media integrations. Its plans also include a free option, with limited capabilities and 10K requests. 

Requests above that will need a paid plan. It’s a practical choice for agencies and mid-sized advertisers that want server-side GTM without managing Google Cloud directly. That said, relying on a managed provider adds another vendor to your measurement chain.

TAGGRS

TAGGRS combines managed server-side GTM hosting with implementation tools designed for marketers and agencies. The company offers a free allowance of up to 10,000 requests per month. Also, the setup is largely smooth, with easy integration with CRM, CMP, and other MarTech platforms. 

Since it’s based in Europe, it takes data sovereignty and GDPR seriously. It’s also ISO27001 certified. Still, you should independently review hosting locations, subprocessors, contracts, and consent handling rather than treating vendor claims as automatic compliance.

Piwik PRO

Piwik PRO Analytics Suite and Tag Manager are worth considering when privacy, controlled hosting, and analytics ownership are central requirements. Its Google Tag Manager server-side integration uses dedicated client and tag templates to send events to Piwik PRO in real time, while its enterprise offering combines analytics, consent management, tag manager, and data activation in one product. 

Piwik PRO states that its enterprise capacity ranges from 1 million to 4 billion monthly actions and that it offers EU-operated or private cloud hosting. We recommend it for regulated or data-sensitive organizations rather than for small teams seeking only low-cost ad-platform conversion forwarding.

Where Server-Side Tracking May be an Overkill

Server-side tracking is good, but it can be too complex and expensive in some instances, like: 

• Very small budgets

For a business spending only a few hundred dollars per month on paid media, the hosting and maintenance costs may exceed the likely measurement benefit. 

• Teams without enough conversion volume

Improved data quality cannot compensate for an insufficient number of meaningful events. Dividing a small number of conversions among several server-generated lifecycle events may create more noise than insight.

• Companies that cannot maintain the setup

Server-side tracking requires someone to monitor hosting, API changes, failed requests, consent rules, deduplication, and conversion accuracy. When no internal employee or dependable agency partner owns those tasks, a simpler Google Ads or analytics implementation is safer than an advanced system that silently distributes incorrect data.

Improve Tracking Accuracy and Attribution with 9AM 

Server-side tracking gives paid media teams a stronger measurement capability. However, it should never be used to bypass consent choices or privacy controls. 

Adoption also remains relatively limited. According to the JENTIS Server-Side Tracking Report 2026, adoption stands at 5% in the US, 8% in the UK, and 10% across the EU. 

So, there’s your opportunity to connect well-governed first-party data with verified conversion data to give ad platforms stronger signals, improve marketing attribution, and optimize toward revenue quality rather than superficial activity. 

It can also empower CMOs to justify increasing paid media spend by demonstrating the properly attributed performance of search, display, and paid social channels. 

However, the technology alone will not produce reliable measurement. Success depends on the expertise of your paid media and analytics teams, along with clear technical ownership and ongoing maintenance. 

9AM can help when your internal team is already focused on media planning, campaign management, and performance. Our analytics specialists can support the planning, implementation, testing, and monitoring of your server-side tracking setup. 

Schedule a server-side tracking consultation now!

FAQs

How to set up server-side tracking?

Set up server-side tracking by deploying a server-side tagging platform such as Google Tag Manager Server-Side, creating a server container, routing website or app events to the server endpoint, and forwarding validated data to analytics and advertising platforms. Configure first-party domains, consent management, and event validation to improve data quality, privacy, and measurement accuracy.

What is an example of server-side tracking?

An example of server-side tracking could be sending purchase events from a website to a Google Tag Manager Server-Side container, which validates the data before forwarding it to Google Analytics 4 for measurement. This process improves attribution accuracy, reduces browser data loss, and supports more reliable campaign measurement.

Where is server-side tracking data stored?

Server-side tracking data is stored on a secure server or cloud infrastructure that processes user events before sending them to analytics and advertising platforms. Storage location depends on the tracking architecture and provider, so it’s up to you where exactly you want the server to be (in case there are regulations on where data can be stored).

Is server-side tracking GDPR compliant?

Server-side tracking can be GDPR compliant if you obtain valid user consent, process personal data lawfully, honor user rights, and implement appropriate security measures. This kind of tracking isn’t compliant automatically. It still requires active consent management and security. 

How does 9AM support paid media teams?

9AM can support paid media teams with media planning, buying, and measurement, which is where server-side tracking comes into play. Our experts help enterprises consistently improve campaign measurement and, by extension, performance, through accurate attribution. 

The Amazon marketplace is incredibly competitive, particularly in the US, where the platform accounts for more than 40% of retail ecommerce sales. 

With so many products competing for attention, many sellers and brands turn to Amazon advertising to improve visibility and drive sales. 

But if you thought setting up on Amazon was difficult, wait till you start running ads. 

Amazon advertising now includes Sponsored Products, Sponsored Brands, Sponsored Display, Brand Stores, video ads, audio ads, and display ads. Then, there’s Amazon DSP (demand-side platform), which is a whole other thing. 

To do it all right, you need a partner who understands Amazon’s advertising tools, marketplace dynamics, customer behavior, and the factors that influence conversions 

An experienced Amazon advertising agency can help you run successful campaigns backed by strategy and strong marketplace experience. 

Most agencies featured in this list specialize in Amazon. We have also included broader retail media agencies with proven experience helping brands improve their visibility, advertising performance, and sales on the platform. 

Amazon Advertising Agencies in the US, Compared 

Top 10 Amazon Advertising Agencies in the US that Specialize in Marketplace Growth 

To help you narrow down your options, we have shared a list of agencies selected for their Amazon advertising services, marketplace experience, core strengths, and ability to support different types of brands. 

1. Incrementum Digital

• Location: New York, NY 
• Notable clients: Samsonite, Ruggable, Martha Stewart, and Super Mario Galaxy
• Rating: 4.8/5 (Trustpilot)

Incrementum Digital is an Amazon-focused ecommerce growth agency that helps you scale across Amazon through targeted display, audio, and video ads. The agency also offers Amazon DSP Management, Seller Operations Management, and covers other retail media channels. 

The agency is well-suited for brands that need more than basic PPC management, as it integrates Amazon PPC, Amazon DSP, product listing optimization, campaign management, creative optimization, and data analytics into a more complete marketplace growth system.

One of Incrementum Digital’s stronger differentiators is DataOwl, its in-house analytics platform. According to the agency, DataOwl unifies insights from Amazon sales, advertising, DSP, and Amazon Marketing Cloud into a single dashboard. You can get visibility into PPC analytics, sales performance, customer journey mapping, and Amazon DSP funnel performance. 

2. Amazon Growth Lab

• Location: Culver City, CA
• Notable clients: Ray-Ban, Mavi Jeans, Ernst Grain, Thrival Muscle Recovery, Vista Fitness, Brooklinen, and Oakley.
• Rating: 4.9/5 (Clutch)

Amazon Growth Lab is a full-service Amazon marketing agency, with services like Amazon PPC, Amazon SEO, listing optimization, creatives, and full-fledged Amazon account management. 

The agency combines paid advertising with organic marketplace strategies to improve product visibility, rankings, and sales performance. For instance, they helped Ernst Grain hit the $10 million mark with a remarkable 2.5% TaCoS. 

Its approach extends beyond campaign management. The team also works on product listings, keywords, images, ad copy, and other content elements that influence organic visibility and conversion rates. Its client portfolio spans competitive categories such as wellness, fitness, home, fashion, and food. 

As their minimum project size is $10K+, they’re best suited for sellers who already have some traction on the marketplace and are looking to scale further. 

3. Blue Wheel

• Location: Birmingham, Michigan
• Notable clients: PowerBlock, Ariat, Cremo, Sol de Janeiro, and Jack Black
• Rating: 4.8/5 (Featured Customers)

Blue Wheel is a full-service ecommerce and marketplace agency that combines Amazon Advertising, Amazon DSP, retail media, marketplace management, and performance creative.

Its Amazon marketing team runs advanced Amazon Ads and Amazon DSP strategies backed by 15 years of industry experience. Services include Sponsored Products, Sponsored Brands, Sponsored Display, Amazon DSP, A+ Content & Storefronts, and Amazon SEO. 

The agency has already worked with over 250 clients and reports an average ACoS of 11.8%, though performance varies depending on the industry and advertising budget. Its case studies also show measurable sales outcomes. For example, an air freshener brand recorded 18.09% growth in total sales. 

Blue Wheel is a strong choice if you want Amazon advertising and DSP connected to the broader commerce strategy rather than handled as a standalone PPC management effort. 

4. Envision Horizons

• Location: New York, NY 
• Notable clients: Kopari Beauty, Dose, Borghese, Nisolo, Odacité, AIIR Professional, and Drift.
• Rating: 4.9/5 (Clutch)

Envision Horizons offers Amazon advertising specialties with over a decade of experience. It is best for established brands that want Amazon to operate as a strategic growth channel. Besides ads, the agency works across Amazon growth, Amazon DSP, Amazon Marketing Cloud, retail media marketplaces, and affiliates. 

Envision Horizons supports full-funnel growth systems that combine advertising strategy, advanced analytics, and operational execution. Plus, it has extensive experience in categories such as beauty & wellness, home & kitchen, baby, and pet supplies. 

myHorizons, the agency’s proprietary analytics platform, connects retail readiness, ad performance, operations, profitability data, competitive intelligence, and real-time performance insights. This kind of reporting helps you move beyond basic dashboards and toward data-driven optimization. Notably, Envision Horizons is an Amazon Advanced Ads Partner. 

5. 9AM

• Location: New York, NY
• Notable clients: Hurom, EVRY Jewels, Mogu Mogu, Booksy, NielsenIQ, Unroll.me, and GenomeLink.
• Clients: 4.9/5 (G2)

9AM is a performance media agency that connects Amazon advertising with broader paid media, creative strategy, analytics, and growth strategy. Its Amazon advertising services include Sponsored Products, Sponsored Brands, Sponsored Display, keyword targeting, product and category targeting, remarketing, and Brand Store integration. 

The agency is best for brands that want Amazon Ads managed as part of a wider performance ecosystem. Plus, its measurement specialty brings data-driven insights on Amazon marketplace performance, which can help address category-specific challenges and maximize ROAS. 

With $250M in ad spend and experience in marketing for 120+ companies, the agency has the scale and technical expertise to work with six- and seven-figure brands selling on Amazon. 

9AM also brings creator marketing and creative design into the mix. For instance, the agency can produce user-generated content (UGC) to optimize storefront and product listings. 

5. Olifant Digital

• Location: Grand Island, NY.
• Notable clients: WedgeGuys, COCOSOLIS, Ekster, OneRoot, HakaLife, Better & Better, and Parker Baby Co.
• Rating: 5/5 (Clutch)

Olifant Digital is a full-service Amazon and ecommerce growth agency for brands that want hands-on Amazon account management. The agency says it manages more than $100M in annual revenue for ecommerce brands and sellers. 

There’s a 60-day money-back guarantee, which suggests they can deliver results quickly. Besides Amazon PPC, they also offer listing optimization, account audits, and SEO, and can even support new product launches. 

So, they’re good for new entrants to the marketplace as well as active sellers who may be struggling to get sales. Olifant says their team consists of Amazon specialists and that clients actually get senior account support. And these seniors have more than 7 years of experience. Case studies confirm that experience, as brands like Bullstrap saw actual growth (85% revenue increase) when working with Olifant’s experts. 

6. Thrive Internet Marketing

• Location: Arlington, Dallas, New York, Chicago, Los Angeles, Seattle, Atlanta, and Miami.
• Notable clients: Grow Strong Industries, Brazos Higher Education
• Rating: 4.6/5 (Clutch)

Thrive Internet Marketing Agency is a full-service digital marketing agency with a dedicated Amazon marketing offering. Its Amazon services are perfect if you need help understanding and growing on Amazon’s ecommerce marketplace, with support across ads, store optimization, Amazon SEO, seller consulting, and Amazon DSP advertising management. 

Thrive also brings broader digital strategy capabilities into the mix, including SEO, PPC advertising, social media, content writing, CRO, web design, and ecommerce optimization. This can be great for brands that want to connect Amazon to other customer acquisition channels. 

For Amazon sellers, Thrive is best suited to companies that want practical campaign management and marketplace support rather than a narrow ad-tech platform. For example, Thrive helped a Wisconsin-based ginseng grower reduce ACoS by 55% while increasing advertising sales by 35%. 

7. Nuanced Media

• Location: Tucson, AZ
• Notable clients: Dollar Shave Club, True Citrus, Lux Unfiltered, Wald Imports, GillyGro, Fairybell, and Lore Mighty Mushrooms.
• Rating: 4.9/5 (Clutch)

Nuanced Media is an Amazon and ecommerce marketing agency that focuses on profitable marketplace growth through Amazon PPC, Amazon SEO, Amazon DSP, account management, creative services, and catalog operations. 

The agency Amazon-focused partner for established sellers and growing brands since 2010. Its approach starts with customer and competitive intelligence, then uses that market analysis to guide PPC Campaigns, product listing optimization, keyword optimization, ad copy, visuals, and broader growth strategy.

As the agency’s services are research- and data-driven, it may be a good fit for sellers who have already tried advertising and not seen much of a difference. Their customer/competitor research and funnel optimization activities might just nudge the sales in the right direction. 

8. Disruptive Advertising 

• Location: Pleasant Grove, UT
• Notable clients: Bunny James Boxes, NURSECON, Crossover Symmetry, Core Home Fitness, and Enso Rings
• Rating: 4.8/5 (Clutch)

Disruptive Advertising is a performance marketing agency that offers a wide range of paid media services. While not a specialist, it also includes Amazon services, which offer a free audit to potential clients. 

They’ve helped brands increase ROI through Amazon PPC and capitalize on sales events like Prime Day. For instance, EMP Shield saw a 565% increase in revenue through Prime Day sales. 

There’s a clear focus on revenue and growth, which stems from their extensive experience with other marketing channels that are typically even more challenging than Amazon. 

Plus, their educational content on the marketplace shows a practical understanding of both Amazon PPC and the wider Amazon platform.

Disruptive is a good option if you want Amazon advertising to fit within a broader paid media and digital strategy framework. According to the agency itself, companies that use its Amazon services also tap its expertise in areas like SEO, paid search, and paid social. 

9. Amazing Marketing Co.

• Location: Kirkland, WA
• Notable clients: CoRevival, MuteSync, Aki Organic, and Total Nutra.
• Rating: 4.4/5 (Trustpilot)

Amazing Marketing Co. is an Amazon growth-specialist agency focused primarily on supplements, CPG, health, and wellness brands. The agency calls itself a full-stack Amazon growth partner helping brands launch, optimize, and scale on Amazon

Services include Amazon PPC optimization, all types of Sponsored Ads, Prime Day deals, limited-time discounts, virtual bundles, coupons, BFCM deals, keyword research, competitor research, A/B testing, account health, FBA optimization, and inventory coordination.

Basically, it’s a one-stop solution for sellers in their specialized niches. Also, they offer different plans, including one that’s PPC-focused, one that’s overall growth-focused, and two that are more comprehensive. 

Client testimonials point to measurable Amazon PPC outcomes, including one PPC takeover where the agency reported 5x monthly sales, 2x ROAS, and ACoS maintained around 20%.

How to Choose the Right Amazon Advertising Agency for the US Marketplace

When searching for an Amazon ads agency in the US, make sure the company has real experience driving profitability, is active in the US marketplace, understands the competitive market in your category, and can support a full-funnel marketing strategy for your store. 

And it would be a plus if the agency could connect growth on Amazon to other channels where your brand sells, such as retail media, DTC, or social commerce. That way, your investment can drive a consolidated effort across multiple channels, not just Amazon. 

Let’s dive deeper into what to look for beyond specialty and case studies. 

Ability to Scale Profitability on Amazon

The right Amazon advertising agency should know how to grow sales without letting ad spend outpace profit. 

This means they should look beyond surface-level brand awareness metrics like clicks, impressions, or even ACoS (advertising cost of sales). 

They should focus and report on:

• TACoS: Total advertising cost as a percentage of total Amazon sales
• Conversion rate: The percentage of product page visitors who complete a purchase
• Organic ranking growth: Changes in unpaid keyword visibility and organic sales
• Contribution margin: Profit remaining after product costs, Amazon fees, fulfillment expenses, and advertising spend
• ASIN-level profitability: The products generating profitable growth and those absorbing budget without sufficient returns
• Incremental marketplace growth: The extent to which advertising contributes to additional sales rather than capturing demand that already existed

We suggest looking for these specific metrics in client examples and case studies. (You can always request these numbers if they aren’t public). 

Pro tip: Go with an agency that can explain how it manages budget allocation, bid adjustments, keyword harvesting, campaign segmentation, and ASIN-level optimization. 

Understanding of US Category Competition

Competition on Amazon in the US varies widely by category. Supplements may involve stricter compliance, high review expectations, and expensive keywords, while apparel brands face challenges around sizing, returns, seasonality, and creative quality.

Your agency should understand the factors shaping your category in the US, including pricing, review volume, Prime delivery expectations, keyword demand, promotional activity, and the advertising strategies used by leading competitors.

Look for category-specific research in the agency’s proposal. It should explain your competitive position, priority keywords, pricing gaps, review strength, and likely advertising pressure. Amazon Ads now provides US advertisers with category benchmarks, which can help agencies compare campaign performance with relevant peer brands.

Don’t Forget Major US Amazon Sales Events

Amazon advertising performance can change significantly around major US shopping events. 

Prime Day, Black Friday, Cyber Monday, back-to-school, holiday shopping, and other seasonal retail moments can all affect ad budget, conversion rates, CPCs, inventory management, and campaign performance. 

They’re also great opportunities you simply don’t want to miss. Prime Day, for instance, generated $26.4 billion in sales in 2026, up 9.5% from last year, according to Smartscout. 

The right agency should know how to plan for, during, and after these events, rather than reacting at the last minute.

This planning may include building awareness with Sponsored Brands or Amazon DSP before the event, increasing Sponsored Products coverage during peak demand, protecting branded terms, adjusting budgets, and using Sponsored Display for retargeting after shoppers leave product pages. 

Strong Amazon Ads Management Services should also include post-event reporting, so you can understand how these events play out in terms of sales and revenue. That way, you can plan your inventory better for next season. 

Pro tip: We highly recommend partnering with an agency that offers deep reporting and performance analytics as part of its service. The data will help you (and the agency itself) continuously improve advertising outcomes. 

Look for Full-Funnel Amazon Ads Strategy

Many brands make the mistake of treating Amazon PPC as only a bottom-funnel sales channel. While Sponsored Products are essential for conversion, a stronger Amazon marketing strategy connects multiple ad types across the customer journey. 

This can include Sponsored Brands for brand visibility, Sponsored Display for retargeting, Amazon DSP for audience segmentation, and Brand Stores to support creative storytelling and product discovery.

A full-funnel strategy helps you balance immediate sales with long-term brand recognition and market share growth. 

Your agency should explain how it connects campaign types, keyword strategy, audience targeting, creative testing, and ongoing optimization. Creative support also matters because product images, videos, and ad assets can directly influence conversion rates. 

Amazon’s own creative tools aren’t the best, which is why partnering with a creative agency can be useful. 

Ability to Connect Amazon with Broader Growth in the US Market

If your brand also sells directly to consumers or through other retailers, you need an agency partner that can work with you for those streams as well. 

This is where full-service or retail marketing specialists may be more useful because they’re not limited to Amazon advertising or marketplace management. 

If you need help with your brand’s digital ecosystem, choose an agency that also handles search, social media, influencer content, and DTC (direct to consumer) messaging. This way, you can connect Amazon to other channels for a more cohesive approach to growth marketing. 

How Much Do Amazon Advertising Agencies Charge in the US?

Amazon advertising agency pricing in the US typically consists of two parts: the Amazon Ads budget and the agency’s management fee. This fee can be around $1,500 to $5,000 per month for smaller or mid-sized accounts, while more advanced or full-service Amazon marketing services can range from $3,000 to $10,000+ per month. 

Amazon agency costs typically depend on catalog size, campaign complexity, and whether the agency also manages your Amazon store.

For Amazon PPC management, many agencies charge a flat monthly retainer, a percentage of ad spend, or a hybrid model. 

For brands with larger ad budgets, some Amazon ads agencies charge a percentage of managed media spend. This usually falls around 10% to 20% of monthly ad spend, although established brands may see rates closer to 8% to 15%.

The best way to evaluate pricing is to ask what is included in the fee. A lower-cost agency may only adjust bids and budgets, while a stronger Amazon advertising partner would provide PPC campaign structuring, keyword optimization, automated keyword expansion, creative testing, and performance analytics.

At 9AM, you get all of these services as part of Amazon advertising. 

Besides full-funnel, highly targeted ad campaigns, the agency’s creative and measurement services can help realize growth, even in super competitive categories like beauty, personal care, and electronics. 

Schedule a free Amazon advertising strategy session to identify campaign gaps, creative opportunities, and practical ways to improve marketplace performance. 

FAQs

What services do Amazon advertising agencies provide?

Amazon advertising agencies provide campaign strategy, keyword research, ad creation, bid management, audience targeting, budget optimization, performance reporting, and account management. Many agencies also optimize product listings, improve conversion rates, manage Amazon DSP campaigns, and analyze sales data to increase return on ad spend (ROAS).

How much does Amazon advertising cost in the US?

Amazon advertising costs in the US vary by campaign type, competition, and keywords. Sponsored Products campaigns commonly use cost-per-click (CPC) pricing, with an average CPC of around $1.22, according to Ad Badger. 

How many types of ads are there on Amazon?

Amazon offers four primary advertising types: Sponsored Products, Sponsored Brands, Sponsored Display, and Amazon DSP. Sponsored Products promote individual listings, Sponsored Brands increase brand visibility, Sponsored Display reaches audiences on and off Amazon, and Amazon DSP delivers programmatic display and video advertising across Amazon-owned and third-party websites.

How can an Amazon advertising agency help me increase sales in the US?

An Amazon advertising agency can increase US sales by adapting campaigns to Amazon.com search behavior, category competition, Prime delivery expectations, and major shopping periods such as Prime Day and Black Friday. It can also refine bids, listings, audience targeting, and budgets based on US customer demand. 

From our experience, we've seen that NYC businesses usually search for a Google Ads agency when the budget starts moving faster than the results. They need cleaner management, better lead quality, less wasted spend, and someone who understands how competitive the New York search can get.

According to Clutch, there are 499 Google Ads agencies in New York City. So, choosing one can feel like scrolling through every pizza place in Manhattan while being hungry.

It's tiring, we know...

But the challenge is bigger than volume. NYC brands deal with expensive clicks, dense local competition, and high-intent searches across every industry you can imagine.

To help you out, we collected the top 10 Google Ads agencies you can compare by paid search specialization, local relevance, service depth, industry fit, proof, and decision value.

Let's get started!

Compare NYC’s Top Google Ads Agencies

A fast table helps you narrow the list before reading full profiles. It also makes it easier to match each agency with your budget, market, and growth stage.

10 Google Ads Agencies in NYC We Think Are Worth Considering

The best fit depends on what you sell and how people buy it. Some teams are stronger for eCommerce, while others make more sense for local service calls, B2B demos, or high-value leads.

These are the agency profiles.

1. 9AM

• Best for: Consumer brands that need Google Ads inside a wider paid media program.
• NYC location: 90 Broad St, 2nd Floor, New York, NY 10004
• Why they stand out: 9AM focuses on cross-platform media buying across search, social, CTV, and retail media with unified attribution.

9AM is perfect for brands that already treat paid media as a growth system. Their work connects search coverage with creative testing, shopping-style intent capture, and channel coordination across the broader funnel.

For Hurom, 9AM built a full-funnel paid media architecture and an educational content system for a premium product. The agency reports 4x revenue growth, a 70% CPA drop, 150M+ brand impressions, and a client quote that references 300% ROAS growth.

2. January Digital

• Best for: Established consumer brands in retail, luxury, and beauty that need Google Ads inside a broader media and analytics strategy.
• NYC location: 80 Pine Street, 30th Floor, New York, NY 10005
• Why they stand out: January Digital pairs paid search with brand analytics, incrementality measurement, and media mix modeling so ad spend ties directly to revenue. 

January Digital fits brands that already have marketing infrastructure but want sharper measurement behind it. Their team offers paid search execution and consulting-level strategy, which suits companies that need a partner comfortable presenting results to leadership, not just running campaigns.

They worked with StriVectin to launch their Peptight™ Face Lift Serum through a full-funnel media strategy across Search, YouTube, Meta, CTV, and DOOH. The campaign used audience-specific messaging, educational creative, and high-impact video placements to drive both awareness and sales, leading to nearly 14M unique YouTube reach, +500% growth in branded search interest, 29% lower CPCs, and 53% higher CTRs for influencer-led assets. 

3. Tinuiti

• Best for: Mid-market and enterprise brands that need Google Ads run at scale with sophisticated attribution and measurement behind it.
• NYC location: 111 West 33rd Street, Suite 1510, New York, NY 10001
• Why they stand out: Tinuiti is the largest independent full-funnel performance marketing agency in the US, managing over $4 billion in digital media and pairing paid search execution with its proprietary measurement platform, Bliss Point. 

Tinuiti has built their reputation on granular audience segmentation, advanced Shopping campaign management, and a willingness to publish detailed quarterly benchmark data on Google Ads performance trends. So, if you need a partner fluent in both campaign execution and the broader media-spend conversation, they’re a good pick for you.

For Parts Town, a food-service equipment distributor, Tinuiti used granular audience targeting across Search, Shopping, Display, and YouTube to hit annual growth goals. On a period-over-period basis, the account saw revenue grow 170% while ROAS improved 27% to 1,579%, alongside more than 22,000 app installs generated through Google Ads App Campaigns.

4. Hunter Digital Marketing

• Best for: E-commerce brands that need paid search, retargeting, and Shopping support with a strict ROAS focus.
• NYC location: 137 West 25th Street, 11th floor, New York, NY 10001, US
• Why they stand out: Hunter Digital Marketing focuses on keyword precision, geo targeting, audience targeting, retargeting, attribution monitoring, and commerce outcomes.

Hunter looks like a boutique SEM agency for brands that care about profitable acquisition and revenue efficiency. Its positioning is especially relevant for retail and eCommerce companies that need Google Ads lead generation to connect with shopping behavior and repeat buyers.

For House of Hackney, Hunter Digital handled paid media strategy and planning through search and social advertising. Over the 90-day post-launch period, the campaign delivered a 43.9% conversion rate, $128K in revenue, and 1,382% ROAS.

5. Mediaforce

• Best For: Businesses that want a process-driven PPC partner with local targeting and clear reporting.
• NYC Location: 99 Hudson St., New York, USA 10013
• Why they stand out: Mediaforce covers search, display, shopping, video, remarketing, negative keywords, landing pages, and AI-forward optimization.

Mediaforce is the broadest operational PPC option in this group. It focuses on local New York targeting, structured campaign execution, transparent measurement, and lead acquisition across multiple industries.

Mediaforce’s Blacks Creek case study shows a shift in paid acquisition performance after the agency took over the account. Leads rose to 213, CTR improved to 9.70%, conversion rate increased to 4.92%, CPC fell to $0.37, and cost per conversion dropped to $7.61.

6. Digital Drew SEM

• Best for: Small and mid-sized brands that need an audit-led Google Ads rebuild.
• NYC location: 300 East 75th Street, New York, New York 10021, US
• Why they stand out: Digital Drew SEM focuses on account diagnostics, campaign restructuring, keyword analysis, shopping, remarketing, and hands-on optimization.

Digital Drew SEM fits businesses with ad accounts that need cleanup before scaling. Its positioning is centered on fixing structure, improving targeting, and tightening campaign setup across search, display, shopping, and video.

Digital Drew SEM worked with Hail Group, a roofing company, to improve lead generation through Google Ads. After campaign restructuring, keyword refinements, stronger ad copy, and landing page improvements, Hail Group increased lead volume by over 400% and reduced cost per lead by more than 60%.

7. Jives Media

• Best for: Businesses that want Google Ads connected to CRM data, lead quality, and revenue visibility.
• NYC location: 800 6th Ave Suite 36C, New York, NY 10001, United States
• Why they stand out: Jives Media focuses on conversion tracking, CRM integration, local services ads, remarketing, shopping, YouTube, and Performance Max.

Jives Media frames paid search around funnel performance after the click. Its process appears best suited for companies that need cleaner attribution, better-qualified searches, and closer alignment between ad data and sales outcomes.

This agency worked with the Medical Center of Marin after the business had weak visibility, high CPCs, poor analytics, and a low-negative ROAS. Jives rebuilt tracking, refreshed ads and landing pages, and reported a 97% increase in Google Ads conversions, 5,000 new prospect patients, and 85% year-over-year organic search traffic growth.

8. Socium Media

• Best for: Growth-stage and mid-market companies that need better lead quality and lower CPL.
• NYC location: 5 Crosby Street, New York, NY 10013 USA
• Why they stand out: Socium Media focuses on structured paid search rebuilds through keyword mapping, smart bidding, negative keywords, and landing page testing.

Socium Media has a clear paid search offering with coverage across brand search, non-brand search, competitor search, display ads, YouTube, and demand gen ads. Its fit is strongest where account structure, lead quality, and landing page relevance need to work together.

Socium helped ACV Auctions, a B2B automotive marketplace, restructure its Google Ads account after lead quality issues and pressure from larger competitors. The work led to a 300% increase in total leads, performance 66% below the CPL goal, and an 83% CPL reduction according to the client's quote.

9. VAB Media

• Best for: Local and small-to-mid-sized businesses that need calls, bookings, map visibility, and traffic.
• NYC location: 394 Broadway, 5th Floor, New York City, NY 10013, US
• Why they stand out: VAB Media maps Google Ads campaign types to business goals such as calls, store visits, leads, and lower CPA.

VAB Media takes a practical approach to local demand capture. Its service page connects search ads, local map ads, shopping ads, video ads, display, retargeting, bid optimization, and landing page A/B testing to specific business actions.

This agency worked with Croissant Coworking to align paid search with monthly trial-signup goals. The published result shows a 75% increase in impressions and a 50% decrease in CPA.

10. Directive Consulting

• Best for: B2B and enterprise tech companies that want PPC tied to qualified pipeline.
• NYC location: 750 Lexington Avenue, Floor 9, New York, NY 10022
• Why they stand out: Directive structures paid search around its "Customer Generation" methodology, pairing Google Ads with positioning, messaging, and revenue operations work rather than treating PPC as an isolated channel. 

Directive operates as a leading B2B and enterprise search marketing agency, with New York as one of several offices alongside their dual headquarters in Irvine and Austin. 

The agency leans on financial modeling and first-party attribution to connect ad spend to pipeline rather than surface-level lead counts, which suits companies with longer B2B sales cycles.

For WordPress.com, Directive's paid media work helped strategically nuance enterprise targeting, increasing enterprise opportunities by 607% and closed-won deals by 175%.

Why These Google Ads Agencies in NYC Made The Cut

Choosing a paid search partner in New York takes more than scanning nice websites. So, we looked for agencies that can connect strategy, execution, tracking, and business value without making the process feel like a mystery box.

These are the main criteria we used.

Google Ads Specialization

Strong agencies should clearly work with search, Performance Max, shopping, YouTube, display, remarketing, bidding, quality score, negative keywords, and conversion tracking. They should also understand how to structure Google Ads campaigns around real buyer intent.

According to Google, Performance Max campaigns beyond retail saw 27% more conversions or conversion value at similar CPA/ROAS, according to Google. That makes channel mix and campaign structure even more important for serious customer acquisition.

NYC Market Relevance

New York advertising needs sharper location targeting and borough-level thinking. Search behavior can change from Brooklyn to Queens, and budget can disappear quickly when competition is high. This is where keyword research, competitor monitoring, and ad spend optimization become practical necessities.

Industry Fit

The right agency depends on the business model. For example:

• A dental clinic needs calls and appointment requests.
• A SaaS company needs qualified demos.
• An eCommerce brand needs revenue and ROAS through Google Shopping.
• A law firm needs high-value case leads from Google search ads.

Tracking and Measurement Quality

We believe that strong agencies should understand form tracking, phone call tracking, offline conversion imports, and CRM handoffs. They should also understand landing page testing, attribution, Google Analytics, and reporting.

After all, the average Google Ads cost per lead in 2025 was $70.11, so weak tracking can turn a small gap into a very expensive habit. Good performance tracking also helps connect paid search to the full sales journey.

Proof and Transparency

The strongest agencies show case studies, client examples, review signals, service pages, partner credentials, or clear explanations of how they manage accounts. Bonus points go to teams that explain CRO and conversion-optimized landing pages without turning every sentence into a dashboard screenshot.

Buyer Usefulness

Our team also prioritized agencies that help buyers understand who they are best for, where they are located, what they specialize in, and where they may be a weaker fit. That includes teams with Google Ads experts, clear audit processes, and practical experience with lead generation.

How Much Do Google Ads Agencies In NYC Cost?

Many Google Ads agencies in NYC charge 10-20% of monthly PPC ad spend, while others use fixed retainers, hybrid pricing, or setup fees.

Smaller accounts may start around a few thousand dollars per month for management. Larger accounts can cost much more once strategy, creative, landing pages, and reporting are included.

The bigger question is what the fee covers. Some agencies only manage bids and budgets. Others support content marketing, display ads, brand awareness, and landing page testing as part of a wider omnichannel approach.

So, you should ask how the agency reports Google ad revenue, how they manage cost per click, and how they adapt to Google's algorithms.

Red Flags To Watch For When Comparing PPC Agencies

A bad PPC fit can look fine during the sales call and become expensive after launch. That is why the questions you ask before signing matter as much as the agency’s pitch.

Here are the red flags to watch for.

• The agency promises instant results before reviewing your account, budget, market, or offer.
• It focuses only on clicks instead of leads, appointments, revenue, or pipeline.
• The team cannot explain how it tracks phone calls from ads.
• Search terms are rarely reviewed, so irrelevant queries can keep draining budget.
• Broad match is used heavily without clear negative keywords, bidding rules, or audience controls.
• Reports arrive with numbers only, with no insights, actions, or next steps.
• Landing pages are treated as someone else’s problem, even when conversion rates are weak.
• Account ownership feels unclear, or the agency avoids questions about who controls access.
• Onboarding has no clear process for tracking setup, goals, approvals, assets, or launch timelines.
• The agency cannot explain how it handles healthcare or compliance-sensitive campaigns when those rules apply.

The best Google Ads agencies are transparent about what they can test, what they can control, and what depends on the business’s offer, website, sales process, or patient intake process.

Choose the PPC Partner That Matches How You Grow

The best Google Ads agency for your business depends on what you need paid search to do. Some companies need cleaner tracking and stronger lead quality. Others need better local targeting, tighter eCommerce performance, stronger landing pages, or a clearer way to connect ad spend to revenue.

That is why the smartest move is to compare agencies by fit, process, transparency, and proof. A good partner should explain how they manage campaigns, how they measure results, and where your website, offer, sales process, or intake process may affect performance.

Before you sign, ask direct questions about ownership, reporting, testing, budget use, and onboarding. Then choose the team that gives you the clearest path from clicks to real business outcomes.

FAQs

How long does it take to see results from Google Ads?

Google Ads can start generating traffic within days, but useful performance patterns usually take a few weeks. Most businesses need 30 to 90 days to collect enough data, test search terms, adjust bids, improve landing pages, and understand lead quality.

Who owns the Google Ads account when I work with an agency?

You should own the Google Ads account when you work with an agency. The agency can get access as a manager, but your business should keep control of billing, campaign history, conversion data, and account assets.

How much ad budget should I have before hiring a Google Ads agency?

You should usually have enough budget to create meaningful data each month before hiring an agency. For many NYC businesses, that means a few thousand dollars in monthly media spend, although competitive industries may need more to test properly.

What contract terms should I check before hiring a PPC agency?

We think you should check ownership, cancellation terms, minimum commitment, setup fees, reporting access, and what happens to campaigns after the contract ends. Also, review whether landing pages, tracking assets, creative, and account data belong to your business.

Every week, around 150 million customers shop across Walmart stores and online. This makes Walmart Connect one of the largest retail media platforms in the US. It gives CPG brands the chance to reach shoppers while they're actively deciding what to buy.

Unlike traditional digital advertising, these shoppers are much closer to making a purchase. They are already comparing products, reading reviews, checking prices, and adding items to their carts. 

Many emerging brands assume Walmart Connect works the same way as Google Ads, Meta campaigns, or other paid search platforms. But unfortunately, it doesn't. 

Success on Walmart Connect depends heavily on retail readiness. Strong product listings, competitive pricing, inventory availability, and customer reviews all influence campaign performance alongside your advertising strategy.

This playbook shows you how to approach Walmart Connect with that reality in mind. It's built for emerging CPG brands that want to compete in crowded categories without an enterprise-level budget or a dedicated retail media team. 

What Is Walmart Connect and How Does It Work?

Walmart Connect is Walmart’s retail media platform and one of the largest retail media networks in the U.S., behind Amazon. It gives CPG brands the ability to advertise across Walmart's website, app, physical stores, and now living room screens, all tied to one of the richest first-party data sets in retail. 

This scale matters because Walmart reaches shoppers in places where purchase decisions already happen. Walmart says its stores and clubs are within 10 miles of roughly 90% of the U.S. population. 

Also, Walmart Connect gives advertisers access to Walmart’s first-party data, which comes from real shopping behavior across digital and in-store touchpoints. 

For emerging CPG brands, this changes how you plan media. 

On Google, Meta, or social platforms, you are usually reading intent signals from searches, clicks, views, and engagement. 

However, on Walmart Connect, your campaigns can connect back to Walmart’s own transaction data. This helps you see how ad spend links to purchases across online and in-store sales. 

Core Walmart Connect Ad Formats

Before you set budgets or pick campaign goals, you need to understand what each Walmart Connect ad format is built to do. Some formats capture shoppers who are already searching on Walmart.com. Others help you reach people earlier through display, off-site media, connected TV, and in-store placements.

For emerging CPG brands, the key is simple: match the format to the job. Start with the placements closest to purchase, then expand once your listings, budget, and measurement are ready.

Sponsored Products 

These are pay-per-click ads that appear in search results, category pages, and product detail pages. This is where most emerging CPG brands should start. 

A shopper searching "high-fiber pasta" or "gut health supplement" is already in buying mode. Sponsored products put your SKUs in front of that shopper at the right moment. 

The example below shows how sponsored products appear within Walmart's shopping experience. Instead of interrupting shoppers, these ads appear alongside similar products while customers compare options and decide what to buy. 

Sponsored Brands

Sponsored brands are ads that appear at the top of Walmart search results. They can feature your logo, a custom headline, and up to four products.

This format helps shoppers notice your brand before they click into a competitor’s product page. For emerging CPG brands, that matters in crowded categories where shoppers may recognize the problem before they recognize your brand.`

Walmart Connect reports that 69% of Sponsored Brands orders come from new-to-brand buyers. This makes it a useful format when your goal is to grow your customer base and earn consideration beyond your existing audience.

Sponsored Brands is at the top of search results and features your logo, a custom headline, and up to four products. They serve a mid-to-upper funnel role and build consideration before a shopper clicks into a competitor's page. 

Sponsored Videos 

These are short, keyword-targeted video ads that auto-play directly within Walmart's search results. They run between 5 and 45 seconds, and a click anywhere on the video takes the shopper straight to your product detail page. 

Onsite Display 

This ad format puts banners and visual ads in front of shoppers across Walmart's site and app, outside of search results. Think homepage placements, category browse pages, and product detail pages. You're reaching people who are already on Walmart but haven't searched for your product yet.

Offsite Media 

Offsite Media extends your reach beyond Walmart's site and app entirely. You can place programmatic ads across Connected TV, social platforms like Meta, TikTok, and Pinterest, audio, and gaming, all using Walmart's first-party shopper data for targeting. 

Every impression, regardless of where it runs, ties back to Walmart purchase data so you can measure sales impact.

In-Store Advertising 

In-Store Advertising helps you connect with Walmart customers while they shop across Walmart's 4,600+ U.S. locations. 

These formats reach shoppers from the entrance, through the aisles, and past checkout to build awareness and consideration at the moment purchase decisions are being made. For CPG brands with physical shelf presence, in-store ads can reinforce what your digital advertisements are already doing.

Why Emerging CPG Brands Struggle With Walmart Connect

Many brands assume poor campaign performance means Walmart Connect is too competitive or advertising costs are too high. In our experience, the root cause usually appears much earlier. 

Some of the most common challenges we see are:  

1. Advertising Before The Retail Fundamentals Are Ready

Walmart Connect is an amplifier, and that cuts both ways. If a shopper clicks your ad and the product page has one blurry image, a thin description, and a price that's out of step with the category, they leave. You paid for that click and got nothing from it.

Product attributes also deserve attention. Missing or incomplete attributes limit discoverability and reduce the quality of search matching.

If Walmart cannot confidently understand your product, it becomes harder for the platform to serve your ads to the right audience. 

2. Starting With the Wrong Campaign Types

The instinct for many brands is to run everything at once. Sponsored Products, Sponsored Brands, and Display, all from day one across every SKU in the catalog. Doing this spreads your budget too thin to generate meaningful data on anything. 

Sponsored Brands and Display are consideration formats that work best when shoppers already know your brand. Running them before Sponsored Products has generated any sales data means you're spending money on awareness for a product that hasn't proven it can convert yet. 

3. Bidding on Broad Category Keywords Too Soon

We’ve seen new brands go after the most competitive keywords in their category right out of the gate. 

A brand with little to no sales on the platform will lose those auctions to established players or win them at a cost that makes the ROAS math impossible.

The smarter move early on is to use automatic campaigns. Let Walmart's algorithm surface the search terms your product converts on, then graduate the winners to manual campaigns with tighter control.

4. Using DTC Creative in a Retail Buying Context

A Walmart shopper in search results is not in the same headspace as someone scrolling Instagram or TikTok. DTC campaigns are built for discovery, storytelling, and aspiration. 

Whereas Walmart shoppers behave differently. They want quick answers.

• What is the product?
• How large is it?
• What flavor is it?
• How many units are included?
• Why should I choose this one instead of the alternatives?

Your product spec and value need to be front and center. The brand story can come later, once the shopper is already on your product page.

5. Judging Performance Only by ROAS

ROAS remains one of the most important metrics in retail media. But it shouldn’t be the only metric guiding your decisions in the early stages of a campaign. 

A new brand on Walmart with low sales velocity, thin review counts, and a short purchase history is not going to produce strong ROAS in the first few weeks. This doesn't mean the campaign isn't working. 

Metrics like new-to-brand customers, retail search share of voice, sales velocity, and total Walmart business growth tell a more complete story of how your ads are performing. We’ll cover more on this later in the article.

How to Run Walmart Connect the Right Way

Setting up a Walmart Connect campaign is the easy part. Profit comes from stronger retail fundamentals, a cleaner campaign structure, and a clear test plan. 

Here is the framework we recommend.  

Step 1: Fix Retail Readiness Before Spending

Before you launch, your products need to be ready to convert. 

Walmart’s own guidance recommends a listing quality score of 80% to 100% in Seller Center. Start with your best-selling items. Make sure each listing has a clear product title, accurate attributes, multiple high-quality images, and a description that answers the questions a shopper would ask before purchase. 

You also need to hold the Buy Box on every SKU you plan to advertise. On Walmart, more than one seller can list the same product. The Buy Box is the default "Add to Cart" button shoppers see. 

If another seller holds the Buy Box, your ads may send traffic to a page where that seller gets the order. Walmart’s Repricer tool can help you stay price-competitive and protect that position. 

Step 2: Start With Sponsored Products

For most emerging CPG brands, Sponsored Products should be the first campaign type you launch.

Sponsored Products place your items directly in front of shoppers searching for relevant products across Walmart's site and app. Walmart also recommends automatic campaigns for advertisers who are new to the platform. The algorithm will match your products to relevant search terms based on your listing content and purchase history. 

After 2 to 4 weeks, pull your search term report and identify what's converting. You can then use those terms in manual campaigns where you have full control over bids and match types. 

In fact, according to Walmart, Sponsored Products campaigns using automatic targeting deliver 1.7x higher ROAS than comparable manual-only campaigns. This makes the auto-to-manual transition your absolute best opportunity to scale profitably early on. 

Step 3: Build Budget and Bids by Brand Stage

Your strategy needs to match where you are at Walmart.

Launch stage

At the launch stage, the goal is learning. Here, we suggest keeping budgets concentrated on your priority SKUs and gathering enough data to understand which products, keywords, and audiences generate conversions.

Growth stage

At this stage, increase your investment in campaigns that consistently perform well. Expand winning keywords, raise bids where appropriate, and introduce additional high-potential SKUs.

Scale stage

Once your retail readiness and Sponsored Products performance are stable, you can pursue broader category keywords, additional placements, and full funnel marketing campaigns. 

This is where Display, Video, and Offsite Media start to make sense because your search foundation is strong enough to support them. 

Step 4: Add Sponsored Brands, Display, and Video at the Right Time

Sponsored Brands make sense when you have multiple strong SKUs and a clear brand story to tell at the top of search results. If you only have one converting product and thin brand recognition on Walmart, this format will likely underdeliver.

Display works best for retargeting shoppers who have already visited your product pages. Use it for seasonal pushes where you need broader reach, and for audience expansion once search is performing consistently.

Sponsored Videos help educate shoppers when your product benefits from a visual demonstration. This is useful for innovative products or categories where customers may need additional context before making a purchase. 

Step 5: Create Retail Media Creative That Converts

Walmart shoppers in search results are moving fast and comparing options. As we mentioned earlier, your creative should immediately communicate what the product is and why someone should choose it.

Lead with these in every format:

• Show the product immediately
• Make the category obvious from the first frame
• Lead with the key benefit, not the brand name
• Include pack size, flavor, count, or usage occasion

A shopper looking for a high-fiber snack bar needs to see "20g fiber" before they see your logo.

Step 6: Measure What Matters

These metrics help you understand how advertising contributes to broader business growth across Walmart.

• ROAS and incremental ROAS
• New-to-brand orders
• CPC and CTR
• Conversion rate
• Product velocity
• Organic rank movement
• Total Walmart sales
• Customer retention rate among first-time buyers 

New-to-brand orders are part of Walmart Connect's new-to-brand metrics. They show how many first-time customers your campaigns acquire, giving you a clearer picture of customer acquisition beyond repeat purchases.

How to Scale Walmart Connect Without Burning Budget

Scaling before your foundation is stable is one of the fastest ways to waste budget on Walmart Connect. 

So before increasing spend, we suggest checking these five signals:

• Inventory is stable, and you are not going in and out of stock
• Your product detail pages (PDPs) have strong conversion rates relative to category benchmarks
• Sponsored Products campaigns are generating consistent attributed sales
• You have enough reviews to give new shoppers confidence
• You have clear winning SKUs with proven performance data behind them

If several of these areas still need work, focus on strengthening them before expanding your investment. 

Smart Walmart Connect Scaling Levers

Once your campaigns are producing consistent results, you can begin expanding strategically.

Start by adding new keywords based on search terms that have already demonstrated strong conversion. Increase bids on proven keywords instead of raising bids across every campaign.

Next, introduce additional SKUs that have strong retail readiness and align closely with your existing campaign structure.

If your products are available in physical stores, consider complementing digital campaigns with in-store promotions. Coordinating online and in-store activity can strengthen brand awareness while supporting overall retail performance.

The key is to introduce one or two scaling levers at a time. This approach makes it much easier to measure what is contributing to growth.

Walmart Connect Scaling Mistakes to Avoid

Growing your Walmart Connect program should feel controlled. When you try to scale too quickly, campaign efficiency suffers.

Scaling before inventory is stable

Running ads for a product that keeps going out of stock wastes spend and signals poor reliability to Walmart's algorithm. Stockouts during a scaled campaign can set back your organic ranking significantly.

Adding too many SKUs too quickly

Every new SKU introduces another variable to manage. So, focus on products that already have strong retail readiness and proven demand before expanding your catalog.

Ignoring search term data

Your search term reports contain valuable insights about shopper intent. Brands that review them regularly can identify new keyword opportunities, remove underperforming terms, and refine campaign structure as they grow.

Treating Walmart like Amazon

Although both platforms operate within the retail media space, they have different shoppers and search behavior. A campaign structure that performs well on Amazon Ads may require significant adjustments before it delivers comparable results on Walmart Connect.

Real-Life Successful Examples of Walmart Connect 

One of the best ways to understand Walmart Connect is to see how other retailers have used it to solve their growth challenges. These three sellers show what Walmart Connect looks like in practice across different business types and growth stages.

Sweet Hearts

Sweet Hearts, an apparel brand led by father-son duo David and Hymie Gindi, used Sponsored Search to support a seasonal campaign. The team analyzed which keywords resonated with shoppers and refined their campaigns based on those insights. 

This strategy resulted in a 9% increase in conversion rate. This shows why search data should guide campaign optimization. 

As Hymie Gindi put it:

"It's not about pushing a product that a consumer will find, but pushing a product that a consumer is looking for."

STS Recycling

STS Recycling sells refurbished electronics on Walmart Marketplace. Its catalog changes constantly as new inventory arrives. The main challenge was steady sales throughout the year and enough visibility for newly added products from day one. 

To stay visible, STS Recycling ran always-on automatic Sponsored Products campaigns for its core catalog. For new products, the team used manual campaigns with more aggressive bids to create early momentum. The result was an 87% year-over-year increase in sales and a return on ad spend 6% above their target. 

TRUBAR

TRUBAR combined multiple Walmart Connect solutions to support both online and in-store growth. The brand started with Sponsored Products campaigns to identify the search terms that drove the most sales.

As performance improved, TRUBAR expanded into Sponsored Videos to increase awareness and paired its digital strategy with in-store demos and sampling across 667 Walmart stores.

The results were impressive. Sponsored Products helped sell 17,000 units, Sponsored Videos generated 5 million impressions and drove 60.5% new to brand orders, while the overall campaign produced a 30% month-over-month increase in sales.

How 9AM Can Help You Win With Walmart Connect 

Running Walmart Connect well means managing retail readiness, campaign structure, creative, bidding, and measurement at the same time. Most emerging CPG brands don't have the bandwidth to do all of that internally, and gaps in any one area show up quickly in wasted spend.

If your Walmart Connect campaigns are underperforming or you are preparing to launch for the first time, book a strategy session with 9AM. We will review your retail readiness, identify growth opportunities, and build a roadmap that helps you scale with confidence. 

FAQs

Is Walmart Connect worth it for emerging CPG brands?

Yes, provided your retail fundamentals are already in place. Walmart Connect can accelerate product discovery and sales, but advertising works best when inventory, pricing, PDPs, and reviews are optimized.

What is the best Walmart Connect strategy for a new CPG brand?

Most emerging CPG brands should start with Sponsored Products before they expand into display and video. Search-based placements capture existing demand, create faster learning, and give you a clearer path to sales.

Once your brand has a baseline of performance, broader audience targeting and awareness campaigns can help you reach new shoppers and support further growth.

How much should emerging brands spend on Walmart Connect?

Emerging brands should plan for at least $100 per day on a Sponsored Products test. Walmart recommends this minimum daily budget to maintain visibility during peak shopping hours and build momentum.

This means your first test should usually have about $1,400 to $2,800 available for a two to four week learning period. Use that budget around a small group of priority SKUs, then review search terms, CPCs, conversion rate, and ROAS before you expand.

What metrics matter most in Walmart Connect?

While ROAS is important, it should not be the only success metric. You should also evaluate incremental sales, new-to-brand customers, product velocity, and overall Walmart business growth. The strongest Walmart Connect programs balance short-term efficiency with long-term market share gains.

Should brands prioritize Walmart Connect or Amazon Ads?

The answer depends on where the business has the greatest opportunity for retail growth. Brands with strong Walmart distribution may find that Walmart Connect offers a more efficient path to visibility and sales. In many cases, brands use both platforms as part of a broader retail media strategy, with channel investment aligned to business objectives.

When should brands invest in Walmart Connect display and video advertising?

Display and video typically become more effective once Sponsored Search campaigns are generating consistent results. These upper-funnel formats help you expand reach, build brand awareness, and introduce products to new audiences. However, they generally perform best when supported by strong search coverage and optimized product detail pages.

How important are product detail pages to Walmart Connect performance?

Product detail pages are one of the biggest drivers of advertising efficiency. Even the best campaign strategy can struggle if shoppers encounter weak images, limited product information, or poor reviews. At 9AM, PDP optimization is one of the first areas we evaluate before increasing media investment.

How does 9AM approach Walmart Connect for emerging brands?

At 9AM, we focus on connecting retail readiness, performance media, and measurement into a single growth framework. Rather than optimizing solely for platform metrics, we evaluate how Walmart Connect contributes to broader business outcomes, including sales growth, customer acquisition, and long-term brand development

Appendix

• https://www.walmartconnect.com/about
• https://www.statista.com/topics/12250/walmart-connect/
• https://www.walmartconnect.com/solutions/sponsored-brands
• https://www.walmartconnect.com/solutions/store-ads
• https://www.walmartconnect.com/insights/retail-readiness
• https://www.walmartconnect.com/resources/articles/2025/lets-grow-2025-seller-summit
• https://www.walmartconnect.com/resources/case-studies/2025/new-fashion-styles-won-new-hearts
• https://www.walmartconnect.com/resources/case-studies/2025/roas-strategy-as-sustainable-as-the-year-round-demand-it-set-in-motion
• https://www.walmartconnect.com/resources/case-studies/2025/how-a-brand-raised-the-bar-from-cravings-to-conversion

Choosing a healthcare marketing agency is harder than choosing a normal digital agency because the outcome is closer to patient flow than campaign activity.

A healthcare company is buying qualified patient demand that turns into booked appointments, completed visits, consults, treatment starts, referrals, or service-line revenue. That requires HIPAA-sensitive workflows, healthcare SEO, patient reviews, call tracking, online scheduling, clinical claim control, and appointment attribution.

The stakes are also rising fast. According to eMarketer, U.S. healthcare and pharma digital ad spending reached $24.77 billion in 2025, up 13.3% year over year, while traditional ad spending continued to decline.

So, in this guide, we'll help you compare agencies by patient-acquisition fit, which matters more than generic visibility. Let's start right away!

Side-by-Side Comparison of Healthcare Marketing Agencies

We thought that a quick table would help you separate real patient acquisition capability from polished positioning. It should show which agency fits, what they measure, and where they are weaker.

Here are the agencies to compare:

How We Scored Healthcare Agencies For Patient Growth

Most rankings lean on reputation or service menus. We scored agencies by how well they attract, convert, and measure qualified demand across marketing, scheduling, clinical trust, and reporting.

Our team used a 100-point scoring system to pick these agencies out. So, these are the scoring areas.

Patient Acquisition Proof

Patient acquisition proof carries 25 points because outcomes matter most. We looked for case studies, appointment growth, lower cost per booked appointment, and conversion gains. Our team treated public relations as useful for trust, referrals, or local authority.

Healthcare Specialization

Healthcare specialization carries 15 points because care decisions need stronger trust signals and review paths. We looked for experience across hospitals, clinics, and key specialties. And pharmaceutical companies need agencies that understand market access.

Channel Depth

Channel depth carries 15 points because patient demand comes from several sources. Strong agencies can manage healthcare SEO, paid search, paid social, and CRO. And content marketing gets credit when it follows search intent.

Appointment Conversion and CRO

Appointment conversion and CRO carry 12 points because extra traffic can expose a weak booking path. So, we checked landing pages, appointment forms, online scheduling, mobile speed, and call-to-action clarity. Smart website design matters when it reduces friction for patients.

Compliance and Claim Review

Compliance and claim review carry 12 points because healthcare needs stronger approvals. Our team looked for HIPAA-sensitive tracking, PHI risk control, and clinical claim review. Strong medical communications experience helps healthcare professionals approve claims faster.

Attribution and Reporting

Attribution and reporting carry 10 points because spend should connect to outcomes. Good agencies track calls, forms, booked appointments, and ROI. And strong setups may use CRM, call tracking, EHR, PMS, offline conversion tracking, first-party data, and dashboards. Lastly, predictive analytics helps after clean tracking.

Multi-Location and Service-Line Scalability

Multi-location and service-line scalability carries 6 points because one clinic is easier than 10, 50, or 100 locations. We checked location templates, local SEO at scale, review management, and reporting by market and location.

Pricing Transparency and Client Fit

Pricing transparency and client fit carry 5 points because budget fit changes everything. Our team looked for clear pricing, scope, and contract terms that match provider size and growth stage. The final ranking favors specialization, measurable outcomes, compliance maturity, and clear provider fit.

Best Healthcare Marketing Agencies for Patient Acquisition Growth

The best fit depends on the provider model, market size, and service-line economics. For example, a national hospital system needs a different partner than a single-location clinic that wants more consults next month.

These are the agency profiles to review through an omnichannel approach.

1. 9AM

• Why this agency made the list: 9AM made the list for compliant consumer-health acquisition with strict claim controls.
• Healthcare services: Paid search, paid social, landing pages, CRO, HIPAA analytics
• Best fit: Best for DTC health, wellness, genetic testing, and digital health brands that need lower CAC in sensitive categories.

9AM is closer to a performance media partner than a local-practice lead generation agency. Their work is a good fit for brands that need education, compliant creative, analytics, and growth strategy to move buyers through a careful decision path.

For GenomeLink, 9AM built a multi-format acquisition system across more than five channels and produced 70+ creative assets per month across six formats. Over a partnership of more than three years, the work helped reduce customer acquisition cost by 77%.

2. Ninja Promo

• Why this agency made the list: Ninja Promo made the list for its subscription-based healthcare growth model.
• Healthcare services: Healthcare SEO, paid search, paid social, conversion rate optimization, call tracking.
• Best fit: Best for clinics, multi-location groups, med spas, telehealth companies, and healthcare startups that need channel breadth.

Ninja Promo is all about full-funnel execution and fast operational support. Their healthcare positioning leans toward teams that want one outsourced growth system across acquisition, conversion, reporting, and social media.

The agency managed paid advertising, GA4, and GTM tracking, strategy, and patient outreach for stem cell therapy services for Stemwell. The campaign increased monthly site traffic from 8,000 to 12,000 visits, tripled engagement, generated 750+ new patient inquiries in three months, and improved monthly ROI from $3,000 to $4,500.

3. Healthcare Success

• Why this agency made the list: Healthcare Success made the list for multi-location growth, local visibility, and HIPAA-compliant call tracking.
• Healthcare services: Local SEO, paid search for healthcare, call tracking, HIPAA-aware analytics.
• Best fit: Best for hospitals, health systems, PE-backed provider groups, and multi-location healthcare organizations.

Healthcare Success is one of the more enterprise-oriented agencies in this group. Their emphasis is on centralized strategy, location-level execution, scalable reporting, and stronger governance across larger provider networks. 

For Acuity Optical, Healthcare Success used SEO, paid campaigns, and HIPAA-compliant solutions to compete with national retailers in Southern California. The work produced a 20% increase in appointments at key locations within three months, 159 new patients, 794 unique leads in one month, and a 14:1 paid search ROI.

4. Intrepy

• Why this agency made the list: Intrepy connects private-practice leads to EHR data and appointment-level reporting.
• Healthcare services: Medical SEO, paid search, physician listings management, appointment attribution, CRM reporting.
• Best fit: Best for specialty practices, orthopedic groups, surgical groups, MSOs, and PE-backed physician platforms.

Intrepy is the most practice-centered agency in this list. If you’re a provider group that needs visibility at the practice, location, service line, or physician level, they’re a good pick.

This agency improved urgent-care visibility for Tennessee Orthopaedic Clinics using SEO, content, ads, listings, and analytics. The campaign drove a 94% increase in organic search traffic, 794 urgent care phone calls from ads, and 202 urgent care patients at an average cost of $6.80 per visit.

5. Create Health

• Why this agency made the list: Create Health made the list for code-compliant pharma and medtech campaigns where communication, positioning, and approval control shape growth.
• Healthcare services: Service-line content, campaign strategy, brand launch support, landing page design, and content creation.
• Best fit: Best for pharma and medtech teams that need HCP engagement and regulated campaign communication.

Create Health is the most communications-led agency in this set. Their value comes from turning complex pharma and medtech topics into clearer campaigns, educational content, and professional-facing messaging. 

For BD’s IVDR 2022 campaign, Create Health developed the Lifting the Fog mini-series to help clinical labs understand the path to compliance. The campaign produced a 68% click-through rate, generated 78 qualified leads, beat the target, and earned a second season.

6. Jack Health

• Why this agency made the list: Jack Health made the list for experiential healthcare marketing tied to launches, congresses, trade shows, and HCP education.
• Healthcare services: Website redesign, brand activation, congress experiences, trade show production, virtual launch support.
• Best fit: Best for pharma, biotech, device, health tech, aesthetics, and wellness brands that need brand-experience execution.

Jack Health operates outside the usual clinic-growth lane. Their work is focused on live, hybrid, and digital experiences that help healthcare brands explain products to patients, prescribers, and internal teams.

The agency created the Photochromic Teleportal for Johnson & Johnson Vision at the American Academy of Optometry meeting, where FDA rules prevented on-site contact testing. Over three days, 412 doctors used the experience, and more than 75 percent said it was helpful.

7. UpThereEverywhere

• Why this agency made the list: UpThereEverywhere made the list for cross-market healthcare growth across patient and HCP audiences.
• Healthcare services: Healthcare SEO, paid search, paid social, website development, content creation, marketing automation.
• Best fit: Best for global aesthetics brands, medical device companies, and health brands that need international campaign support.

UpThereEverywhere is closer to a global health and aesthetics partner than a local provider marketing shop. Their services include brand strategy, search, paid media, website development, and marketing automation for healthcare brands working across several markets. 

For Galderma, UpThereEverywhere supported a global webinar series during a crisis period to reach specialist audiences. The program reached more than 22,000 HCPs worldwide, which points to strength in professional education at scale.

8. WAX

• Why this agency made the list: WAX made the list for patient acquisition and professional audience engagement across hospitals, payers, ACOs, and provider groups.
• Healthcare services: Paid search, paid social, landing page design, website redesign, geofencing, audience targeting.
• Best fit: Best for health systems, hospitals, payers, and large provider groups that need enterprise-scale campaign coverage.

WAX works as a broad healthcare advertising and media partner. Their strength is in research, strategy, web, media, and healthcare data work for organizations that need to influence patients, referring professionals, and decision-makers.

This agency ran a targeted My65+ campaign for ChristianaCare’s two new primary care practices in southern Delaware. The campaign generated 900+ new patients in 9 months, more than double the original 450-patient goal.

9. AGENCY Bristol

• Why this agency made the list: AGENCY Bristol made the list for legal-first patient marketing systems that turn search intent into clinic referrals.
• Healthcare services: Healthcare SEO, paid search, paid social, landing page design, call tracking, HIPAA-aware analytics.
• Best fit: Best for medical device and pharma teams that need compliant direct-to-patient demand generation.

AGENCY Bristol is a UK healthcare marketing firm focused on MedTech and pharma acquisition. Their process starts with compliance, patient personas, search intent, landing pages, and tracking across strict healthcare regulations.

For Zimmer Biomet’s nSTRIDE knee program, AGENCY Bristol developed patient personas, compliant messaging, a find-a-clinic landing page, and symptom-led search ads. The campaign delivered 128 UK clinic referrals in one month at £18.66 cost per acquisition and increased conversion rate by 157%.

10. Practice Builders

• Why this agency made the list: Practice Builders made the list for new-patient growth and retention marketing across medical and dental practices.
• Healthcare services: Medical SEO, website design, reputation management, listing management, new patient targeting, and content marketing.
• Best fit: Best for independent practices, group practices, multispecialty clinics, urgent care centers, and dental practices.

Practice Builders is the most practice-growth-focused agency in this set. Their services cover websites, SEO, reputation management, listings, content, new-patient targeting, and team training for healthcare practices. 

A testimonial from James M. Austin, DDS, says his practice had weak online visibility and declining new-patient volume before working with Practice Builders. He reports that new patient numbers increased by 50% and gross production rose by 20% after the engagement.

11. Hallam

• Why this agency made the list: Hallam made the list for privacy-first healthcare performance marketing in restricted targeting environments.
• Healthcare services: Medical SEO, paid search, audience research, CRO, analytics frameworks.
• Best fit: Best for life sciences, diagnostics, biotech, and specialist healthcare brands with cross-market acquisition needs.

Hallam works best where patient journey visibility, privacy-conscious measurement, and regulated media buying all matter. Their healthcare positioning is all about search, paid media, CRO, analytics, and FDA, EMA, and HIPAA constraints.

For Source BioScience, Hallam used international SEO, PPC, digital PR, and website migration support to increase clinical test demand in the U.S. market. The work produced an 11% year-over-year organic traffic lift, 528% more paid-advertising orders, 12% lower spend, and 114% higher sales revenue.

12. Aha Media Group

• Why this agency made the list: Aha Media Group made the list for healthcare content that supports patient education, SEO visibility, and physician engagement.
• Healthcare services: Healthcare SEO, content strategy, service-line copy, patient stories, and content operations.
• Best fit: Best for hospitals, health systems, and B2B healthcare organizations with large content needs.

Aha Media Group is a content-led healthcare agency. Their services align with organizations that need accurate medical language, search-friendly pages, patient education, and clearer publishing workflows.

This agency helped Roswell Park improve content and physician outreach through SEO-driven thought leadership and email campaigns. The client’s U.S. News specialty reputation ranking moved from 27th to 7th nationally after the content and engagement effort.

13. One Day Agency

• Why this agency made the list: One Day Agency made the list for last-mile healthcare communications across HCP engagement, consumer activation, and event-led media.
• Healthcare services: Paid search, paid social, SEO, video advertising, HCP media targeting.
• Best fit: Best for pharma and medtech brands with launches, congresses, or regional awareness campaigns in the UK and Europe.

One Day Agency approaches healthcare marketing through media activation rather than ongoing patient acquisition. The agency uses digital, OOH, TV, display, and specialist HCP channels to support regulated campaigns around specific market moments. 

For Johnson & Johnson MedTech at EHRA Congress 2026 in Paris, One Day Agency ran a targeted Uber Ads campaign for doctors, cardiologists, researchers, and healthcare decision-makers. The four-day campaign generated 59,264 impressions, 2,078 clicks, and activity across 25,975 completed trips.

14. The Motion Agency

• Why this agency made the list: The Motion Agency made the list for healthcare brand campaigns tied to measurable appointment and traffic lift.
• Healthcare services: Website redesign, paid social, lead generation, public relations, and multichannel planning.
• Best fit: Best for hospitals, orthopedic groups, rehab brands, and provider organizations that need brand and patient-volume growth.

The Motion Agency brings a brand-first lens to patient-facing healthcare campaigns. Their work focuses on building trust, strengthening reputation, educating audiences, and tracking performance across several channels. 

Motion launched a multichannel campaign for Rush’s on-demand virtual care service in two weeks. The campaign drove 4x more traffic to the appointment scheduler page, 215% more unique page views, and a 28% lift in virtual appointments within 90 days.

15. Accelerated Digital Media

• Why this agency made the list: Accelerated Digital Media made the list for HIPAA-aware patient acquisition across paid media, analytics, and attribution.
• Healthcare services: Paid search, paid social, programmatic acquisition, GA4 setup, HIPAA-aware analytics.
• Best fit: Best for digital health, telehealth, online pharmacy, clinical trial recruitment, and urgent care brands.

ADM is more performance-focused than brand-led. Their focus is unusually specific about patient-journey mapping, platform policy, landing page alignment, privacy audits, and attribution.

For PicnicHealth, ADM used SEM, paid social, and programmatic campaigns to recruit patients across seven condition-based observational studies. The work generated 1,444 new patient enrollments in January 2023, cut social cost per enrolled patient by 55%, and reduced overall cost per enrolled patient by 38%.

What Does Patient Acquisition Mean in Healthcare Marketing?

Patient acquisition in healthcare means attracting the right patients and converting them into booked appointments. It also means measuring whether those appointments turn into real clinical or business outcomes.

A lead has limited value if the patient never schedules. A scheduled visit also has limited value if the patient does not arrive. And once the patient arrives, value changes by service line, payer mix, treatment plan, and lifetime patient value.

Tebra’s 2025 Patient Perspectives survey found that 79% of patients read reviews before choosing a provider. It also found that 56% start their provider research on Google, while 41% check practice websites and 38% check WebMD before booking.

For that reason, teams should track key metrics like booked appointments, treatment starts, cost per acquisition, conversion rates, and ROI by location.

Which Services Matter Most In Healthcare Patient Acquisition?

The most important healthcare patient acquisition services are SEO, local search, paid search, paid social, CRO, reputation management, attribution, and compliance workflows. Each service should move patients from need to trust to booking.

These healthcare marketing agency services matter most.

Healthcare SEO

Healthcare SEO should cover key pages, provider bios, insurance info, Google Business Profile, patient-focused search intent, and so much more.

Google receives more than 1 billion health-related questions every day, and about 7% of Google searches are health-related. That makes website SEO work best when content development follows real intent. Also, careful backlink building can support authority.

Local SEO and Google Business Profile

Local SEO matters because patients usually search near me before choosing care. Strong setups cover map pack visibility, location, and provider pages, reviews, appointment links, photos, service categories, etc. Real patient experiences show up here.

Paid Search for Healthcare

Paid search works when campaigns match service-line intent to booking. LocaliQ’s 2026 benchmark analyzed 3,542 U.S. healthcare search campaigns and found averages of 6.07% CTR, $5.64 CPC, 8.09% conversion rate, and $66.02 cost per lead.

Strong campaigns cover branded and non-branded search, local targeting, landing page alignment, and compliant copy. From our experience, we have seen that smart media planning protects spend.

Paid Social for Healthcare

Paid social can support awareness, retargeting, patient education, and certain service lines. But it works best when campaigns use privacy-safe audiences, compliant lead forms, and carefully reviewed testimonials and visuals.

Clear medical education and strong storytelling help explain patient problems. At the same time, patient-centric messaging is especially important for disease state campaigns.

Conversion Rate Optimization

CRO is where many campaigns fail because patients still face long forms, slow pages, unclear insurance details, weak credibility, or confusing appointment buttons. Press Ganey reported that 80% of healthcare consumers say online scheduling influences their provider choice, and nearly one-quarter would walk away if booking was difficult.

CRO should improve scheduling flow, forms, calls, financing, location details, reviews, speed, trust, privacy, and clarity. A little behavioral science reduces friction.

Reputation Management and Reviews

Reviews affect trust and local rankings. Strong programs cover review generation, responses, monitoring, and key platforms like Google and Healthgrades. A clear brand strategy connects these signals to safety, access, and credibility.

Attribution and Reporting

Healthcare reporting should link campaigns to calls, forms, appointments, visits, and service-line and location performance. CRM integration ties marketing to scheduling outcomes, while data must be handled carefully, and tracking kept reliable.

Compliance Workflows

Good agencies review campaigns before launch. They cover HIPAA, PHI, BAAs where needed, clinical claims, testimonials, ad policies, FDA/FTC rules, and medical, legal, and regulatory checks.

They also use privacy-safe analytics and consent-aware tracking. Clear approvals can speed work in complex environments while skilled medical writers keep content accurate.

How Much Should Healthcare Patient Acquisition Marketing Cost?

Healthcare patient acquisition marketing can cost a few thousand dollars per month for a smaller practice and much more for multi-location groups, competitive specialties, or enterprise systems. The better question is how much it costs to acquire the right patient.

First Page Sage’s 2026 report found that average patient acquisition costs vary heavily by specialty, from $155 for Pediatrics to $610 for Cosmetic/Plastic Surgery.

That range explains why one flat benchmark can mislead teams. Costs vary by specialty, competition, payer mix, and growth strategy.

Choose The Agency That Can Prove Patient Growth

The right agency should help you create demand, earn trust, remove booking friction, and measure what happens after the first click. Broad marketing skills still matter, and brand development can support growth when the care decision requires trust. But for patient acquisition, proof matters more than polish.

So, make sure to look for a partner that understands compliance, appointment conversion, service-line economics, and reporting by location. If your team wants better patient engagement and cleaner digital transformation, the agencies listed here can help you assess the gaps and build a plan that fits your stage.

FAQs

What makes healthcare digital marketing agencies different from general agencies?

Healthcare digital marketing agencies are different because they work inside healthcare compliance, patient privacy, clinical claims, and offline appointment workflows. A general agency may optimize leads, but a healthcare partner needs to understand calls, forms, bookings, completed visits, and service-line ROI.

What services should a top healthcare digital marketing agency offer?

A top healthcare digital marketing agency should offer SEO, local search, paid search, paid social, CRO, reputation management, call tracking, attribution, and compliance review. For larger systems, it should also support provider pages, location pages, service-line reporting, and healthcare CRM workflows.

How should hospitals and clinics choose a healthcare marketing partner?

Hospitals and clinics should choose a partner based on patient-acquisition proof, healthcare specialization, compliance process, attribution maturity, and provider-model fit. Independent practices, specialty clinics, PE-backed healthcare groups, MSOs, DSOs, and hospital systems typically need different campaign structures.

Are AI-powered healthcare digital marketing services compliant and safe?

AI-powered healthcare digital marketing services can be safe when they use strong governance, privacy controls, and human review. An AI toolkit should never process PHI casually, generate unsupported claims, or publish medical content without review from the right internal team.

How do healthcare marketing agencies handle HIPAA?

Healthcare marketing agencies handle HIPAA by limiting PHI exposure, using privacy-safe analytics, reviewing tracking tools, and setting clear workflows for forms, pixels, call tracking, and testimonials. BAAs may be needed when vendors handle protected health information.

Most growth teams are wired for acquisition. The metrics are cleaner, the wins are more visible, and there's always another campaign to run. 

But somewhere between the first touchpoint and the second invoice, most teams have no real plan for what happens next. Onboarding becomes an afterthought. Check-ins sound automated and hollow. Feedback gets collected, stored, and rarely turned into action. 

This leak is getting harder to ignore. A 2025 Adobe and Publicis Sapient report found that acquisition costs rose 35% from 2022 to 2025, while customer lifetime value grew only 4.5%. Acquisition can fill the top of the funnel, but retention decides how much revenue actually stays.

Retention helps you build customers who return, spend more, and recommend your brand. Meanwhile, acquisition keeps getting more expensive, particularly when campaigns attract people who respond to a discount, make one purchase, and leave before the relationship has time to grow.

This article breaks down the mindset shift retention really requires (the one most teams skip), the strategies that create durable customer value, and the metrics that show what is actually working. 

P.S. If you want stronger retention marketing strategies that connect customer experience, lifecycle marketing, and loyalty mechanics, 9AM can help. We help you improve LTV modeling, increase repurchase rates, and build more durable revenue through growth systems built around retention.

TL;DR: What You Can Learn

• Retaining a customer costs a fraction of acquiring a new one, yet most brands underinvest in it while continuously spending to replace lost customers.
• You should earn retention first, then deepen it into loyalty.
• High churn quietly destroys profitability; 65% of revenue comes from existing customers.
• The main retention levers are lifecycle marketing, personalized messaging, loyalty programs, subscriptions, customer experience, and win-back campaigns.
• Strong retention raises CLV, improves the CLV:CAC ratio, and makes paid acquisition more profitable without increasing spend.
• Retention doesn't compete with acquisition; it's what makes acquisition worth running.

What Is Retention Marketing?

Retention marketing is the discipline of keeping existing customers engaged, driving repeat purchases, and turning satisfied customers into loyal advocates. Where acquisition asks "how do we get them in?", retention asks "how do we make staying the obvious choice?"

This difference matters because existing customers are usually easier and more profitable to convert. In fact, data shows that selling to existing customers typically has a 60% to 70% success rate, while selling to new prospects typically has a 5% to 20% success rate. So when teams ignore retention, they leave a warmer audience underused while spending more to reach colder buyers.

Cost makes the case even clearer. Acquiring a new customer can cost 5 to 25 times more than keeping an existing one. In SaaS, it can also take 1 to 5 years before a customer becomes profitable, depending on acquisition cost, onboarding time, contract value, and churn risk.

Plus, the upside can be significant. Even a 5% increase in retention can increase profits by 25% to 95%, depending on the business model and margin structure. Loyal customers are also 50% more likely to repurchase and 86% more likely to refer, which means retention can support repeat revenue and word-of-mouth growth at the same time. 

Here are the key differences between retention marketing and acquisition marketing:

Retention vs Loyalty

Retention tells you customers are still buying. Loyalty tells you they have a reason to keep choosing you. This distinction matters because repeat purchases can come from contracts, discounts, habit, or switching friction. Loyalty goes deeper because the customer sees enough value to stay even when another option looks cheaper.

However, you should earn retention before chasing loyalty. If onboarding is weak, product value feels unclear, or churn stays high, loyalty campaigns can only do so much. First, make the customer experience worth repeating. Then loyalty mechanics, referrals, and advocacy programs have something real to build on.

Why Acquisition-First Teams Underestimate Retention

Churn is rarely just a retention problem. For acquisition-focused brands, it's a growing financial drain hiding in plain sight.

U.S. businesses lose an estimated $1.6 trillion annually to customer churn, and they keep spending to replace what they're losing. Plus, acquiring a new customer now costs around $536 in B2B to $1,450 in fintech. 

This pressure creates a hard ceiling on growth. Acquisition-focused teams typically end up with high CAC and too-low CLV, resulting in a CLV ratio well below 3:1, dangerously close to or below 1:1. 

You can make acquisition more efficient, but that only solves part of the problem. 

When we partnered with GenomeLink, a DNA analysis platform competing in one of the more crowded corners of consumer health tech, the brief was straightforward: scale user acquisition without letting CAC spiral. 

Over three years, we built a systematic approach to creative production. Our team produced 70+ unique assets monthly across six formats. Then we combined that creative volume with rigorous cross-platform optimization and conversion testing. 

This approach delivered a 77% reduction in customer acquisition cost. The same budget went significantly further, and the unit economics started working in their favor. 

Still, CAC reduction alone does not finish the growth equation. Retention is what helps CLV get where it needs to be because it turns first-time customers into repeat revenue without requiring more acquisition spend. 

Why Retention Marketing Matters for Business Growth

The following reasons show why retention marketing has become a core growth lever for teams that want stronger margins, better customer value, and more predictable revenue. 

1. Increases Customer Lifetime Value (CLV)

Every customer comes with an acquisition cost. Retention is how you earn it back.

CLV shows the total value a customer creates throughout the relationship. It usually depends on three core levers: average order value, purchase frequency, and customer lifespan. 

Retention marketing works across all three levers. It can increase order value through smarter recommendations, improve purchase frequency through timely follow-ups, and extend customer lifespan through better onboarding, support, and customer experience. 

This matters because a customer usually becomes more valuable after the first purchase. They understand the product better, need less persuasion, and give your team more behavioral data with every interaction. 

Each repeat purchase creates stronger signals around preferences, habits, timing, and buying patterns. That data helps teams make the next message more relevant and the next sale more likely. 

That’s why better retention makes every acquisition dollar work harder.

For a deeper breakdown of the early customer moments that shape repeat purchase behavior, read Post-Purchase Moments That Raise LTV in 30 Days

2. Makes Paid Acquisition More Profitable

Paid ads get expensive fast when customers only buy once. The channel economics only work when acquired customers keep coming back.

Higher CLV gives you more room to spend without weakening ROAS. 

• On Google, this can mean bidding more competitively for high-intent searches. 
• On Meta, retention data can help identify your best customers and improve audience signals. 
• On TikTok, loyal customers can extend paid performance through repeat purchases, organic sharing, and stronger product recall. 

So even if the first purchase ROAS stays flat, retained customers can improve total ROAS over time. The acquisition campaign brings the customer in, but retention determines how much value that customer creates afterward. 

3. Improves Profitability

Existing customers understand the product and need far less convincing the second time around. This makes them considerably cheaper and easier to convert than someone who's never heard of you.

Strong retention lowers churn, which means fewer customers need replacing. As a result, the acquisition spend can focus on genuine long-term growth instead of constantly filling the gaps left by lost customers. 

Profitability improves because retained customers usually create more revenue with lower incremental cost. They need less education, move faster through the buying journey, and usually require fewer resources to convert again. 

4. Creates More Predictable Growth

It’s not just that your existing customers know your brand well; you know them well, too. Their purchase history, preferences, and behavior patterns give you a deep understanding that’s hard to replicate with new audiences.

Repeat customers create revenue stability that makes budgets, inventory, and staffing easier to plan. And the first-party data they generate (purchase habits, preferences, service interactions) feeds AI-powered analytics that help you anticipate needs and forecast future behavior more accurately.

Retention Marketing Channels That Actually Deliver

The best retention channels do more than keep your brand visible. They help customers get more value after the first purchase, remind them at the right moment, and make the next step easier. 

The following channels are usually the strongest starting points. 

Email 

Email gives you a direct, low-cost line to customers after the first purchase. It nudges repeat orders, reduces churn, surfaces useful feedback, and keeps the relationship warm.

Unlike paid acquisition, you're not paying to reach people you already earned. Email marketing generates around $36 ROI for every $1 spent, far outperforming Google Ads’ $2 return.

SMS

SMS works best when timing matters. Messages get read within minutes, which makes it the right tool for flash sales, reorder reminders, and loyalty nudges, where waiting 48 hours for an email to open doesn't cut it.

The numbers back this up: SMS carries a 98% open rate and a 45% response rate. This reach matters particularly for short, action-oriented messages, like "you're 10 points from a reward" or "your usual is due soon".

Social Media 

Social media supports retention when it turns customers into active participants instead of passive followers. People stay closer to a brand when they feel heard, see their stories reflected, and know the comments section gets real attention. 

Community spaces can also give customers a stronger reason to stay connected between purchases. Social listening adds another layer because casual comments, complaints, and product questions can reveal what customers actually want next. 

The strongest retention tactics usually include resharing customer stories, responding quickly to useful feedback, creating follower-only moments, and hosting community events for engaged customers. 

These actions make the relationship feel more personal, which helps customers stay connected after the first sale. 

LEGO’s fan programs show how strong communities can turn repeat buyers into active participants who keep the brand relationship alive. 

Paid Retargeting

Paid retargeting helps you reach past purchasers, lapsed customers, cart abandoners, and high-value segments with more relevant messages. Instead of using paid media only to chase new buyers, teams can use it to drive repeat purchases, upsells, replenishment reminders, and win-back campaigns.

It also gives retention teams faster feedback. Campaign data can show which offers, messages, products, and audiences respond best. These insights can then improve email, SMS, lifecycle flows, and the broader retention strategy.

Push Notification

A push notification shows up wherever the user is, which makes timing everything. They work best when the message connects to a clear behavior, such as onboarding progress, abandoned activity, reward status, product usage, or a timely reminder. 

The retention impact is most pronounced early in the customer relationship. Data show that sending a push in a user's first week can increase retention by 71%, and consistent use in the first 90 days can more than double the number of people who stick around. 

The catch is that the format demands discipline. You only have a few words and one chance to feel relevant before a customer mutes alerts or starts ignoring them completely. 

Core Retention Marketing Strategies

Good retention does not come from sending more messages. It comes from understanding where customers slow down, what they need next, and which moments can turn a first purchase into an ongoing relationship.

Below, we have shared some strategies that can help you improve onboarding, repeat purchases, customer value, and long-term engagement without relying only on new traffic.

1. Lifecycle Marketing

Lifecycle marketing treats the customer relationship as a connected journey instead of a one-time conversion. It starts before the first purchase and continues through onboarding, repeat purchases, loyalty, and advocacy. 

The strategy works because each stage needs a different message. A new customer may need reassurance, product education, or setup support. A repeat customer may need restock reminders, relevant recommendations, or early access to something they already care about. 

Behavioral data keeps these messages timely. Purchase history, engagement patterns, product usage, and real customer actions can trigger welcome series, replenishment reminders, re-engagement messages, and win-back flows before interest fades into churn 

Ultimately, lifecycle marketing keeps customers moving forward naturally, without requiring a manual push every time.

2. Personalization

Personalized marketing makes customers feel understood instead of targeted. When a brand remembers what customers bought and anticipates what they might want next, the whole relationship feels less transactional.

The numbers reflect it: personalized emails generate 50% higher open rates. And tailored experiences make consumers 80% more likely to buy. 

Take Starbucks’ example that turns purchase history into personalized challenges and rewards that keep customers coming back with genuine enthusiasm.

3. Loyalty Programs

Loyalty programs give customers a reason to keep choosing your brand after the first purchase. The best ones create value through rewards, access, recognition, and experiences that make customers feel closer to the brand. 

They also keep the relationship active through regular touchpoints. Points, perks, referrals, early access, and member-only offers can turn repeat buying into a more intentional habit.

For example, Nike Connected Membership gives members access to exclusive event invites, discounts, and brand moments that make loyalty feel more personal than a standard points program. 

4. Subscription & Replenishment Programs

Subscriptions work because they remove the repeat purchase decision. When customers receive what they need on schedule, they have fewer reasons to compare options, delay the order, or drift toward a competitor. 

The model earns loyalty through three things: affinity, convenience, and value. Members feel part of something, delivery arrives without effort, and the price is better than buying one-off. This combination builds routine, which is remarkably hard to disrupt. 

For you, the payoff is predictable recurring revenue, and for customers, it removes one more decision from their day. 

5. Customer Experience Optimization

Retention starts long before a loyalty program. Customers decide to stay through the everyday moments that make buying, using, and getting support feel easy. 

Those moments show up in: 

• How smoothly someone onboards
• How little friction they hit when buying again
• How consistent the experience feels across the app, website, email, or support 

The brands that treat customer experience seriously build retention into their revenue models. They track CLV and CSAT with the same urgency as new sales, and treat customer success as a growth function.

6. Customer Feedback & Voice of Customer

Listening to customers is table stakes. Acting on what they say is where retention actually happens. Companies with strong VoC programs see 55% higher retention rates than those without because they act on the answers. When customers see their input drive real decisions, trust grows. 

Orange Telecom shows how practical this can get. The company saved €200,000 in churn in a single year by combining customer feedback with AI-driven analysis to identify at-risk customers early. When teams act on feedback systematically, listening becomes a revenue strategy. 

7. Win-Back Campaigns

Churn does not always mean the relationship is over. Sometimes it means the customer paused, forgot, lost momentum, or no longer saw enough value to return. 

Win-back campaigns exist to close that gap. They identify at-risk customers early, then re-engage inactive buyers before they fully move on. That timing matters because lapsed customers already know your product and have trusted it before. 

They also give you a useful head start. A returning customer may need a clearer reminder, a better offer, a product update, or a reason to revisit the value they missed. 

GoDaddy's approach illustrates this cleanly. They revived inactive customers with a straightforward 30% discount on new purchases: a clear, effective nudge that brought users back.

Key Retention Metrics Acquisition Teams Should Own

At 9AM, we look at retention metrics as part of the full growth system, instead of a separate reporting layer. Below, we have shared the key numbers acquisition teams should own once a customer makes the first purchase. 

How to Build a Retention-First Mindset in an Acquisition Team

The simplest shift in retention thinking is also the most overlooked. 

Stop measuring success only by how many new customers you acquired. Start measuring it by how much value those customers create after the first purchase. 

This means tying goals to LTV and reviewing acquisition performance by how well each cohort retains. It also means building feedback loops between your paid media, CRM, CX, and product teams. 

These functions generate signals that are genuinely useful to each other. A spike in churn may point back to a campaign that attracted the wrong audience. A product complaint in support may reveal a retention risk before it turns into lost revenue. 

Most importantly, treat retention as a revenue line, something you forecast, invest in, and optimize. The brands that do this retain more customers and grow more predictably.

Read Next: CAC Payback Period: LTV Modeling That Finance Will Trust

How 9AM Helps Brands Improve Retention Marketing

If you want a smarter approach to keeping customers, our team at 9AM can help you build retention strategies that grow steadily. We work across customer lifecycle strategy, email and SMS campaigns, and paid media informed by LTV, connecting every stage of the customer journey into a system you can actually see. 

Customer acquisition and retention, measured together, with reporting that tells you what's working and where customers are slipping away.

Ready to turn your retention into a catalyst for growth? Book your strategy call!

FAQs

Why do most growth teams underinvest in retention?

Growth teams underinvest in retention because acquisition is easier to track, easier to report, and usually has clearer budget ownership. Retention needs input from CRM, product, CX, and analytics, so it mostly gets delayed. As a result, teams keep funding new customer volume while missing the revenue already sitting inside existing customers. 

What is a good customer retention rate?

 A good retention rate depends on the industry and the business model, but a median rate of around 75% is generally considered healthy. SaaS companies usually aim for 85–95% monthly retention, while ecommerce may see 25–40% repeat‑purchase retention. What matters most is improving your baseline over time. If retention is rising, customer value, revenue predictability, and growth efficiency rise with it.

Which retention marketing channels deliver the highest ROI?

Email marketing consistently delivers the strongest ROI due to its low cost, direct reach, and high level of personalization. SMS and push notifications perform well for timely, high‑intent messages. Paid retargeting, in-app messaging, and loyalty programs can also perform well when they target known customers with timely, relevant offers. 

How does 9AM help brands with digital retention marketing?

At 9AM, we build retention marketing systems that keep customers buying, reduce churn, and grow lifetime value. Our team connects the right channels (email, SMS, paid, lifecycle programs) to the right moments in the customer journey, so your retention efforts grow.

Does 9AM provide transparent insight into its retention and performance marketing approach?

Yes. We build dashboards that make retention performance visible and actionable: churn rates, repeat purchase frequency, CLTV, campaign attribution, and channel contribution, all in one place. You'll always know what's working, what isn't, and where the next opportunity is.

Appendix ▼

CTR (Click-Through Rate) used to be the metric everyone watched first.

If people clicked, the ad looked like it was working. If they did not, you changed the headline, CTA, landing page, or audience targeting.

But in today’s feed-first world, a CTR you don’t interpret in context can hide the bigger problem. 

Your video ad can show up in Meta Ads, TikTok, YouTube Shorts, Reels placements, or LinkedIn video and still get scrolled past before you even get to the point.

This matters because short-form video is now where a lot of marketing attention goes. HubSpot’s 2026 data shows that short-form video is the most used media format by marketers, with 49% ranking it as the top ROI-driving content format. 

So, yes, CTR still matters. It shows whether someone cared enough to act on your message. 

But hook rate answers the earlier question: Did they stop long enough to see/ understand that message?

This is why measurement needs to go beyond clicks. At 9AM, we help you build stronger marketing measurement frameworks that connect early creative signals with clicks, conversions, attribution, and revenue. 

In this blog, we’ll cover:

• What hook rate means and how it differs from the thumb stop ratio
• Why CTR still matters, but cannot explain the full creative performance story
• How hook rate, hold rate, completion rate, conversion rates, and CPA work together
• How to measure hook rates across Meta Ads, TikTok Ads Manager, YouTube Ads, and Reels placements
• How to improve hook rate without creating clickbait
• How to use hook variants, A/B testing, and creative analysis to improve your creative strategy

So, let’s get started.

TL;DR: What You Can Learn From This Article

If you only have a few seconds, below’s the gist of it (though we promise, you can find lots of useful, in-depth information below).

• CTR shows click intent, but hook rate shows whether the creative earned attention first.
• Hook rate is most useful when interpreted in the context of metrics like hold rate, CTR, conversions, CPA, and revenue.
• Meta, TikTok, YouTube, LinkedIn, and other organic social platforms measure early attention differently.
• Strong hooks qualify the right viewer instead of chasing empty attention.
• The first few seconds should make the audience, problem, or outcome clear.
• High hook rate does not always mean strong performance if hold rate or conversions drop.
• Creative testing works best when you change one hook variable at a time.
• The best teams treat hook rate as part of creative analysis, not a standalone success metric.

What Is the Hook Rate?

The hook rate measures the percentage of people who keep watching after the first few seconds of a video ad or creative impression.

In simple terms, it tells you whether your opening actually stopped the scroll.

For Meta Ads, hook rate is mostly calculated using 3-second video views:

So if your video gets 10,000 impressions and 2,500 three-second video views, your hook rate is 25%.

Hook Rate vs Thumbstop Rate

Both metrics point to the same idea: your creative has to win the first few seconds before the rest of the message can do its job.

However, expert marketers understand the nuance between them:

The thumbstop ratio focuses on the behavior. It asks whether someone stopped scrolling. Hook rate, on the other hand, focuses more on the creative mechanism. It asks whether the first frame, opening line, motion, visual contrast, or on-screen prompt earned attention.

The CTR Is No Longer the First Signal That Matters

CTR became the default because it matched how the older web (and traditional marketing) worked.

Users had more control over the path.

• A search ad answered a query.
• An email CTA reached someone who had already subscribed.
• A display banner appeared beside the content someone had chosen to read.
• A website link appeared while someone was already exploring a topic.

So CTR made sense as a first signal. The user had already entered the journey.

That logic becomes weaker inside TikTok, Instagram Reels, YouTube Shorts, LinkedIn video, Meta Ads, and other ad platforms where people move through content quickly.

There, the click is no longer the starting point. 

Today’s Marketing Happens Inside Attention Feeds

In social feeds, users are filtering.

And you are competing inside extremely crowded spaces. Facebook reports 200 million companies are on the platform. This means every impression is hard-earned. Over 90% of businesses in general use social media to connect with their followers.

So, your video ad appears between creators, memes, news, friends, product demos, user-generated content, AI video ads, and platform-native posts.

This makes the opening seconds critical. If the first frame, first line, or on-screen prompt does not feel relevant, the viewer moves on before the offer appears.

Remember: A strong CTA or landing page cannot fix a creative that gets skipped before the message starts. But monitoring your hook rates diligently helps you catch this problem early. 

The Attention Funnel Comes Before The Conversion Funnel

The old question was: Did they click?

The better question now is: Did the right audience stop long enough to care?

This shift matters because people do not move straight from impression to conversion. The path usually looks more like this:

Impression > stop > watch > understand > research some more > believe > click > convert > retain

Each stage tells you something different.

• If people do not stop, the opening needs work.
• If they stop but leave quickly, the payoff is weak.
• If they watch but do not click, the offer or CTA may need clarity.
• If they click but do not convert, the issue may be audience fit, landing page quality, or offer strength.

So CTR still has a role, but it should not be the first signal you rely on for video-led creative performance.

The Shift From Click Optimization to Attention Optimization

Performance marketing used to be more click-led. You optimized keywords, improved ad copy, increased CTR, lowered CPC, tested landing pages, and scaled what converted.

As we explained above, this still matters. But in feed-first channels, a click comes after a more basic win: attention.

The Old Performance Marketing Model

The older model was built around improving what happened after someone showed intent. 

You tracked:

• Keyword performance
• Ad copy quality
• CTR
• CPC
• Landing page conversion
• CPA, CAC payback periods, or ROAS

If CTR dropped, you reviewed the headline or CTA. If conversion rates dropped, you reviewed the landing page or offer.

This process still works for search and high-intent campaigns. But for Meta Ads, TikTok, Reels placements, YouTube Shorts, and other feed-based formats, it can miss the first creative problem: Did the viewer stop long enough for the message to matter? 

The New Creative Performance Model

The newer model starts with the opening.

You test hook variants, measure early attention, review hold rate, study completion rate, and check where video viewers drop off. Then you connect that creative analysis to CTR, CPA, CAC, pipeline, or revenue.

This makes your creative analysis more useful. 

You can see which hook earned attention, which message kept people watching, which proof created trust, and which CTA moved them forward.

TikTok’s own ad guidance reflects this shift. It recommends introducing the content proposition in the first 3 seconds and prioritizing the hook in the first 6 seconds. 

In fact, TikTok has also reported that 90% of ad recall impact is captured within the first 6 seconds.

Why This Shift Matters Now

Feeds move fast, and creative fatigue can show up quickly.

This means your creative strategy needs regular A/B testing, fresh hook variants, and smart creative revisions. The same opening may work for a few days, then lose strength as audience engagement drops.

Ad platforms are also more automated. Meta says Advantage+ sales campaigns use AI to optimize creative, targeting, placements, and budget.

So your creative now carries more of the targeting work.

A broad ad set or lookalike audience can help distribution, but the hook tells the platform and the viewer who the message is for. If the opening is too broad, you may attract the wrong attention. And if it is too vague, the right buyers may scroll before they understand the offer.

This is why attention optimization now comes before click optimization.

Hook Rate vs CTR: The Practical Difference

Hook rate and CTR answer different questions.

Hook rate tells you whether the opening made someone pause. And CTR tells you whether the message made someone act.

So, you should not interpret either metric without proper context. A strong video ad needs to get noticed first, hold attention long enough for the message to land, and give the right viewer a clear reason to click. 

Here’s the practical difference between the most important marketing metrics:

How to Measure Hook Rate Across Channels

Hook rate is not measured the same way everywhere.

Meta Ads Manager, TikTok Ads Manager, YouTube Ads, Reels placements, LinkedIn, and websites all give you different signals. So instead of forcing one universal benchmark across every channel, we recommend comparing each channel against its own behavior.

Start with the platform definition, then compare your results by format, placement, audience, and campaign objective.

Meta ads

For Meta Ads, hook rate is usually calculated with 3-second video plays and impressions.

Meta defines 3-second video plays as the number of times your video played for at least three seconds, or nearly its full length if the video is shorter than three seconds.

Meta Ads Manager does not always show hook rate as a default column, so you may need to create it as a custom metric. Meta’s own setup path is simple: go to Ads Manager, select Columns, choose Customize columns, then select Create custom metric.

Once you have the metric, do not read it alone. Compare the hook rate with the metrics we mentioned above.

You should also segment it by placement. A video ad in Instagram feed may behave differently from the same creative in Reels placements, Facebook feed, or Audience Network. One ad set can also hide useful differences if the placements are mixed together.

Use benchmarks only as a starting point. Published hook rate ranges usually treat 25% to 30% as solid, 30% to 40% as good, and 40%+ as very strong on Meta. But your own account history is usually more useful because it reflects your audience, offer, format, and creative style.

Insider tip: Do not scale or kill a Meta campaign based on hook rate alone. A high hook rate can still fail if the hold rate drops, CTR is weak, or conversions do not follow.

TikTok ads

TikTok hook rate needs a slightly different read because TikTok Ads Manager gives you several early-view signals.

Start with 2-second video views for a quick hook check. TikTok defines this as the number of times your video starts playing for at least 2 seconds in an impression session. 

For deeper creative analysis, also review 6-second video views, focused views, average play time, and video views at 100%.

Pro tip: In our daily practice, we have noticed that 2-second views are useful for testing the opening, but they do not tell the full story. To understand whether the message held attention, compare them with 6-second views, average play time, and completion metrics.

Also, watch TikTok trends carefully. A trend can help your video feel native to the feed, but it should not replace message clarity. If the trend attracts the wrong viewers, the hook rate may look good while CTR, conversion rates, or CPA still struggle.

Note: Use this table as a directional guide. Your best benchmark is still your own TikTok Ads Manager history across audience, format, offer, and creative style.

Read Next: TikTok Ads vs Meta Ads: How to Brief Differently for Each Platform

YouTube, LinkedIn, and Organic Social

YouTube, LinkedIn, and organic social do not always give you a clean hook rate metric, the way Meta Ads Manager or TikTok Ads Manager might.

So here, you need to read early attention through behavior.

Look at:

• Retention
• Average watch duration
• Replays
• Drop-off points
• Video views
• Comments
• Saves
• Profile visits
• Engagement quality
• Assisted pipeline signals

Review the first 1 to 3 seconds separately. This is where you can see whether the opening frame, first line, text overlay, or visual movement gave people a reason to keep watching.

From what we have seen, B2B content typically creates value before it creates a click. Someone may watch, save, comment, visit your profile, search your brand later, or bring it up in a sales conversation before they ever click.

Therefore, hook rate should be read in the context of audience quality, rather than raw volume alone.

So:

• Look for patterns in videos with a stronger completion rate, saves, comments, or replays. If an organic post keeps the right people watching, treat it as an input for paid creative testing. 
• Pull the winning hook, format, angle, or first-frame idea into your next Meta Ads, TikTok, or YouTube Ads test.

How to Improve Hook Rate Without Creating Clickbait

Remember: a better hook does not have to be louder. It has to be more relevant.

Your goal is to make the right person pause, understand why the message matters, and keep watching long enough to reach the offer.

Below, we have shared a few ways to do that without turning your creative into clickbait:

1. Use the Stop, Signal, Sustain, Sell Framework

Use this simple framework when reviewing hook variants:

• Stop: Create the pause with a strong first frame, motion, contrast, pain-point recognition, or a direct audience callout.
• Signal: Show who the video is for so you attract the right viewers instead of broad, low-quality attention.
• Sustain: Deliver on the opening with proof, examples, contrast, or a clear story.
• Sell: Connect the idea to a next step and make the CTA specific.

For example, a weak hook might say:

“Want better ad performance?”

A stronger version would be:

“Your Meta Ads may not have a targeting problem. They may have a first-three-seconds problem.”

This hook works harder because it creates a pause, signals the audience, introduces a clear problem, and sets up the rest of the video to explain what to fix.

If your hook stops people but does not signal the right audience, you may get attention that never turns into CTR, conversion rates, or revenue. A strong hook should pull in the right people and set up the rest of the video ad to do its job.

2. Make The First 3 Seconds Specific

Once the hook idea is clear, tighten the execution.

Cut anything that delays the point. Avoid any kind of long setup, logo-first intro, slow product reveal, or generic opening line.

Your first 3 seconds should answer one of these quickly:

• Who is this for?
• What problem are we talking about?
• What outcome should the viewer expect?
• Why should they keep watching?

Pro tip: We suggest using on-screen prompts when the spoken line needs support. For example, if the creator says, “This is why your ads are getting clicks but no sales,” the text overlay can say:

High CTR, low conversions? Check the hook.

This gives the viewer context even with the sound off and makes the opening easier to understand. 

Read Next: The Rise of Micro-Moments: Capturing Intent in a 3-Second World

3. Match Hook Intensity to Offer Depth

Not every offer needs the same kind of hook.

High-intensity hooks can work well for impulse products, where the buyer needs a quick reason to care. But B2B and high-consideration offers need credibility much faster.

For complex offers, curiosity alone is not enough. Your hook should signal expertise, context, or a sharp problem the buyer already recognizes.

Someone may respond to urgency as part of a DTC messaging ladder:

“This serum sold out twice for a reason.”

A B2B buyer usually needs a more specific reason to trust you:

“Your paid social problem may not be targeting. It may be creative fatigue showing up before CTR drops.”

This matters even more in B2B. LinkedIn’s 95-5 rule says 95% of potential buyers are not ready to buy today. So your hook needs to build memory and trust before it drives an immediate click. 

The deeper the offer, the more your hook needs to prove that the rest of the message is worth their time.

4. Use Hook Types That Qualify the Right Viewer

A strong hook should help the right viewer recognize themselves fast. Different hook types do that in different ways.

• Problem hook: Leads with a pain point your audience already feels. This works well when the buyer knows something is wrong but may not know the cause.

For example, for National Debt Relief, we used a problem hook built around debt stress instead of leading with the offer. The opening shows someone overwhelmed by bills, with the line “she hasn’t slept in weeks because of debt stress.” It works because the pain is clear before the solution appears. 

• Contrarian hook: Challenges a common belief. Use this when you want to interrupt familiar thinking and make the viewer reconsider.
• Data hook: Opens with a number, trend, or performance insight. This works when your audience responds to proof or wants a sharper reason to pay attention.
• Identity hook: Calls out a specific role, team, or buyer type. This helps filter broad audiences and attract the people the message is actually for.
• Mistaken belief hook: Points out something the audience may be measuring or interpreting incorrectly. This works well for educational or thought-leadership content.
• Before-and-after hook: Shows a shift from one way of working to a better one. Use this when you want to make a change feel clear and practical.

Here’s a perfect example of an ad our team created for HiSmile using a similar before-and-after pattern. 

• Question hook: Asks something the viewer has likely wondered but may not have said out loud. This works when the question creates instant relevance.
• Visual hook: Uses the first frame, motion, product use, expression, text overlay, or dynamic animation to create the pause before the spoken message lands.

The best hook type depends on the viewer’s awareness level. Cold audiences typically need a clear problem or identity signal. Whereas warmer audiences may respond better to proof, contrast, or a sharper point of view.

5. Test One Hook Variable at a Time

In our daily practice, we test one hook variable at a time because it keeps creative analysis clean. This means changing the first line, first frame, visual format, speaker, problem angle, audience callout, proof point, or CTA placement while keeping the offer and audience stable.

If you change everything at once, you will not know what actually improved the hook rate. 

Rotate hook variants one at a time, whether you are testing user-generated content, AI video ads, product footage, or dynamic animation. This makes creative revisions easier and gives your team a cleaner creative testing framework.

A Better Way to Diagnose Creative Performance

Metrics are only useful when they tell you what to fix next. Based on our experience working with different clients, we have learned that the cleanest read comes from looking at hook rate, hold rate, CTR, conversions, and CPA together. 

If the Hook Rate is Low

Your opening is not creating a pause. Rework the first frame, remove intro fluff, make the pain point clearer, test a stronger audience callout, use sharper contrast or motion, and bring the outcome earlier. 

If the Hook Rate is High, But the Hold Rate is Low

This means the opening got attention, but the content did not hold it. The payoff may be too slow, the message may not match the hook, or the video may need tighter pacing. 

If Hook and Hold are High, But CTR is Low

People are interested, but they may not see a clear next step. This is a signal to strengthen your CTA, clarify the offer, and bring social proof or product proof earlier.

If CTR is High, But Conversions are Low

The click is happening, but buyer intent may be weak. Check whether your hook is attracting curiosity instead of buyers, and make sure your landing page matches the ad promise. 

If CPA is High Despite Strong Attention Metrics

This signals that attention is not turning into commercial intent. In this case, we recommend revisiting the offer, pricing, funnel, audience quality, and where your ad spend is going before scaling the video ad. 

The Future: From CTR-First Marketing to Attention-Led Growth

As ad platforms automate more targeting decisions, creative has to carry clearer signals. Broad audiences need hooks that tell both the viewer and the platform who the message is for. Vague hooks create vague signals. Strong hooks help the right people self-select before you spend more budget trying to find them.

The best marketing teams will think like editors and performance analysts at the same time. 

This is why hook libraries, first-frame testing, opening-line analysis, creative scorecards, attention benchmarks, creative fatigue monitoring, and post-click quality checks will become part of normal creative operations.

The old question was, “Which ad got the most clicks?” The better question is, “Which idea earned the right attention and moved the right people forward?”

Turn Hook Rate into Revenue Clarity with 9AM 

If you want a clearer way to read creative performance, our team at 9AM can help you turn early attention signals into decisions your team can actually use. We connect creative analysis, attribution, and revenue data so you can see which ads deserve more budget and which need another round of testing.

Ready to see where your creative is winning or leaking performance? Book your strategy call!

FAQs 

Is the hook rate better than CTR?

Not always. Hook rate is better for diagnosing whether your opening stopped the scroll. CTR is better for measuring whether the message, offer, and CTA created click intent. You can use the hook rate to fix the first few seconds and CTR to judge whether the ad gave people a reason to act.

What is a good hook rate?

A good hook rate depends on the platform, format, audience, placement, and campaign objective. For Meta Ads, 25% to 30% is often a workable baseline, 30% to 39% is strong, and 40%+ is excellent. For TikTok, 30% to 35% is usually solid, while 40%+ is strong, but TikTok hook rates can look higher because the platform uses a shorter 2-second view metric.

But remember, your most important benchmark is still your own account history by ad set, creative type, audience, and offer.

What are the 7 types of hooks?

The 7 common hook types are:

• Problem hook: Leads with a pain point
• Contrarian hook: Challenges a common belief
• Data hook: Opens with a number or insight
• Identity hook: Calls out a specific audience
• Mistaken belief hook: Corrects a wrong assumption
• Before-and-after hook: Shows a clear shift
• Question hook: Asks something the viewer already cares about

A visual hook can support any of these through the first frame, motion, product use, expression, or text overlay.

What are the hook rate and hold rate?

Hook rate shows how many people stayed through the first few seconds of a video. Hold rate, on the other hand, shows how many of those early viewers kept watching after the hook. A high hook rate with a low hold rate usually means the opening worked, but the payoff, pacing, or message did not hold attention.

How to calculate hook rate and hold rate?

For Meta Ads, hook rate is commonly calculated as:

Hook rate = 3-second video views ÷ impressions × 100

Example: 2,500 three-second video views ÷ 10,000 impressions × 100 = 25%

Hold rate can be calculated as:

Hold rate = 15-second video views ÷ 3-second video views × 100

Example: 1,000 fifteen-second views ÷ 2,500 three-second views × 100 = 40%

How does 9AM help brands use hook rate?

At 9AM, we help you connect the hook rate with hold rate, CTR, conversion rates, CPA, ROAS, and revenue. This makes it easier for you to see whether the creative problem is happening in the opening, the message, the CTA, or the post-click funnel.

Can 9AM build dashboards for the hook rate and creative performance?

Yes. At 9AM, we build custom dashboards that track early attention, creative performance, attribution, and revenue in one place. This is useful when your team is running Meta Ads, TikTok ads, YouTube Ads, or cross-channel campaigns.

Appendix

• https://newmediaservices.com.au/how-many-businesses-use-social-media 
• https://ai.meta.com/ai-for-good/datasets/small-business-surveys/ 
• https://www.hubspot.com/marketing-statistics
• https://ads.tiktok.com/help/article/creative-best-practices
• https://ads.tiktok.com/business/en/blog/creative-best-practices-top-performing-ads
• https://www.facebook.com/business/ads/meta-advantage-plus/sales-campaigns
• https://www.facebook.com/business/help/743427195703387
• https://www.facebook.com/business/help/698045821051774
• https://ads.tiktok.com/help/article/video-play
• https://business.linkedin.com/advertise/resources/b2b-institute/b2b-research/trends/95-5-rule

Performance Max campaigns can drive strong results, but they can also make branded and non-branded traffic harder to separate.

Google says advertisers using Performance Max see 27% more conversions at a similar cost per action on average. But if your campaign is heavily capturing branded searches, these numbers may not reflect actual incremental growth.

That’s where Performance Max brand exclusions come in.

They help you control branded traffic inside PMax, so you can better understand whether your campaign is driving new demand or capturing people who already know the brand. 

So if you’re trying to figure out whether your Performance Max campaigns are actually driving new customer growth or just capturing branded demand, 9AM can assist. We help you scale Google Ads performance through media buying services focused on clearer attribution and profitable growth. 

In this guide, we’ll cover:

• What brand exclusions are and how they work in Performance Max
• Brand exclusions vs negative keywords vs brand inclusions
• When you should exclude competitor, branded, or reseller terms
• How to add brand exclusions to new and existing PMax campaigns
• Best practices, troubleshooting tips, and the latest Performance Max updates

What Are Brand Exclusions in Performance Max?

Brand exclusions in Performance Max help you stop your ads from appearing on specific branded searches.

This becomes useful when you want your PMax campaign to focus more on new customer acquisition instead of picking up traffic from people who are already searching for your brand or a competitor’s brand.

For example, let’s say you already run a dedicated branded Search campaign. If your Performance Max campaign also starts showing for those same branded queries, it can make reporting harder to analyze. Your ROAS may look stronger because branded searches usually convert at a higher rate.

Brand exclusions help you clean that up.

In Performance Max, brand exclusions apply across:

• Search inventory
• Shopping inventory
• YouTube Search inventory

So if someone searches for an excluded brand on one of these placements, your ads may stop appearing for those searches.

There’s one important exception here.

Google still gives you the option to allow Shopping ads to appear for excluded brand searches. This setting is useful for e-commerce brands, resellers, and multi-brand stores that still want Shopping visibility while restricting other ad placements.

Google identifies brand exclusions using brand entities instead of standard keyword matching. This means you’re excluding recognized brands from Google’s database rather than manually blocking individual search terms.

As a result, brand exclusions give you broader control compared to traditional negative keywords.

Brand Exclusions vs Negative Keywords vs Brand Inclusions

Brand exclusions, negative keywords, and brand inclusions all help you control where your ads show. The difference is how much control each one gives you and what type of traffic you’re trying to manage.

Brand Exclusions

Brand exclusions block selected brand entities from your campaign.

This tells Google that you don’t want your ads to show for searches connected to a specific brand. That could be your own brand, competitor brands, reseller brands, or partner brands you don’t want PMax targeting.

Use brand exclusions when you want to manage branded traffic at the brand level instead of adding every possible keyword variation manually.

Negative Keywords

Negative keywords block specific search terms or phrases.

They work best when you need to filter precise queries. For example, you may want to block terms like “free,” “jobs,” “used,” “cheap,” or any query that does not match your offer. 

Performance Max now supports campaign-level negative keywords and negative keyword lists. Google says you can apply up to 10,000 negative keywords to a Performance Max campaign, and those negative keywords apply to Search and Shopping inventory.

So: 

• If you want to block a full brand, brand exclusions are usually cleaner. 
• If you want to block a specific phrase or intent pattern, negative keywords give you tighter query control. 

Brand Inclusions or Restrictions

Brand inclusions work in the opposite direction.

Instead of blocking selected brands, they help limit a campaign to selected brand traffic. This is useful when you want a campaign to focus on specific branded searches rather than broader non-brand discovery.

For example, a brand-focused Search strategy may use brand inclusions to stay close to high-intent branded demand. This can help when you want tighter control over which brand terms your ads can serve on.

For Performance Max, advertisers usually talk about this as a “brand-only” setup, where the campaign is shaped around branded demand instead of broader acquisition.

When Should You Use Brand Exclusions?

You should use brand exclusions when you want Performance Max to focus on new demand instead of branded traffic that already has strong intent.

They make the most sense when you want to:

• Avoid showing ads on competitor brand searches
• Separate branded and non-branded campaign performance
• Reduce spend on searches that are unlikely to bring new customers
• Make reporting easier to read and explain
• Protect dedicated branded Search campaigns from PMax overlap

How to Find Which Brands to Exclude

The hardest part about brand exclusions is usually figuring out which brands are actually affecting your Performance Max traffic.

A good place to start is Search Terms Insights inside Google Ads. This helps you spot branded queries your PMax campaign is already picking up.

As you review the data, look for patterns like:

• Competitor brand searches
• Reseller or marketplace brands
• Affiliate traffic
• Irrelevant branded queries
• Your own branded searches

If you already run a dedicated branded Search campaign, seeing your own brand appear heavily inside PMax is usually a sign that exclusions may help clean up reporting and acquisition performance.

For most accounts, your brand exclusion list will usually include:

• Your own brand
• Top 5 competitors
• Reseller or marketplace brands
• Partner or affiliate brands

Once you know which brands belong on your exclusion list, the next step is applying that list to your Performance Max campaign. 

How to Add Brand Exclusions to a Performance Max Campaign

Google lets you apply brand exclusions both while creating a new Performance Max campaign and inside an existing campaign’s settings. The setup process only takes a few minutes, but choosing the right brand list can make a big difference in how clean your PMax traffic becomes. 

New PMax Campaign

If you’re creating a new Performance Max campaign, you can add brand exclusions during the campaign setup process.

Here’s how to do it:

1. In your Google Ads account, click the Create icon.

2. Click Campaigns.

3. Create a new Performance Max campaign.

4. When you reach the Campaign settings section, click More settings.

5. Click Brand exclusions.

6. Select the brand list you want to apply.

7. If you do not already have one, click New brand list and create it.

8. Choose whether to check Allow Shopping ads on searches that mention excluded brands.

• Check it if you still want Shopping ads to appear when someone searches for an excluded brand.
• Leave it unchecked if you want stricter exclusions across supported PMax inventory.

9. Complete the rest of your campaign setup.

We recommend deciding whether to allow Shopping ads or not based on your campaign goal. If your campaign is built for clean non-brand acquisition, keep Shopping restricted too. If you’re a reseller or multi-brand retailer, allowing Shopping ads may still make sense. 

Note: One thing to keep in mind is that Google uses a predefined brand library for brand exclusions. So if a brand doesn’t exist in Google’s system yet, you may need to request it manually before you can exclude it. 

As per Google, brand approval can sometimes take 4 to 6 weeks, so it’s worth submitting those requests early if you already know which brands you want to block.

Existing PMax Campaign

If your Performance Max campaign is already running, you can still add brand exclusions from the campaign settings.

Here’s how:

1. In your Google Ads account, click the Campaigns icon.

2. Open the Campaigns drop-down menu.

3. Click Campaigns.

4. Go to the Settings tab.

5. Select the Performance Max campaign you want to update.

6. Scroll to Additional settings.

7. Click Brand exclusions.

8. Choose an existing brand list or create a new one.
9. Decide whether you want to allow Shopping ads on searches that mention excluded brands.
10. Click Save.

After saving, give the campaign some time before judging the impact. Then check your Search Terms Insights and performance data to see whether branded traffic starts dropping from PMax.

Performance Max Brand Exclusions Best Practices

Brand exclusions work best when you use them with a clear campaign goal. The point is not to block every brand you can find. The goal is to keep PMax focused on the traffic you actually want.

Below, we have shared a few best practices that we follow when managing Performance Max brand exclusions:

• Use exclusions to keep Performance Max focused on non-brand traffic.
• Avoid excluding too many brands at once, since that can limit useful reach.
• Review Search Terms Insights regularly to catch new branded queries.
• Organize brand lists by campaign goal, such as own brand, competitors, partners, or resellers.
• Align exclusions with your Search campaign structure so PMax does not compete with branded Search.
• Combine brand exclusions with negative keywords when you need both brand-level and query-level control.

Based on our experience, we recommend applying brand exclusions in stages instead of changing everything at once.

Start with your own brand and the most obvious competitor or reseller terms, then review fresh campaign data before adding more exclusions. This makes it easier to understand which changes improved traffic quality and which ones may have limited useful reach.

A simple rule: if a brand term makes your reporting messy or pulls budget away from new demand, it probably belongs on your review list.

How to Measure the Impact of Performance Max Brand Exclusions

After you apply brand exclusions, don’t judge the change too quickly. Give the campaign a little time to collect fresh data, then compare performance before and after the update.

Start with your non-brand numbers. Look at non-brand CPL, which is the cost of generating leads from non-branded traffic only, or non-brand ROAS before the exclusions were added. Then compare them to the performance after the change.

You should also track:

• Conversion volume
• CPA
• ROAS
• Conversion rate
• Impression volume
• Search Terms Insights
• Branded Search campaign performance

A good checkpoint is 7 to 14 days after implementation. Review Search Terms Insights and see whether branded queries have dropped from your PMax traffic.

Then compare Performance Max against your branded Search campaigns. If your brand Search campaign starts capturing more of the branded demand again, and Performance Max becomes more focused on non-brand traffic, your exclusions are doing their job.

How to Troubleshoot Performance Max Brand Exclusions

Even after you apply brand exclusions, you may still see some unexpected traffic or performance shifts. That does not always mean the setup is broken. In many cases, you just need to check the settings and give the campaign enough time to adjust.

The most common issues you should look for are:

Brand exclusions are not applying immediately

Brand exclusions may take some time to reflect in your campaign data. If you just added them, avoid making another major change right away. We recommend giving your campaign some time to collect fresh data, then checking Search Terms Insights again.

Shopping ads are still showing for excluded brands

This usually happens because the Shopping setting is enabled. Check whether “Shopping ads on searches that mention excluded brands” is turned on. If it is, Shopping ads can still appear for those excluded brand searches.

Traffic dropped after applying exclusions

We usually see this in our daily practice when Performance Max was getting a meaningful share of conversions from branded searches before the change. 

So, before reversing the exclusion, check conversion quality, non-brand ROAS, CPA, and branded Search performance. A traffic drop is not always bad if the remaining traffic is cleaner. 

Branded search leakage is still appearing

If branded queries still show up, check whether you selected the right brand entity in Google’s brand library. For leftover phrases that do not get covered cleanly, add campaign-level negative keywords. This helps close the gaps that brand exclusions may miss.

2026 Performance Max Updates for Brand Exclusions: What’s New 

Google has added more controls and reporting for Performance Max, which matters if you’re using brand exclusions to clean up traffic quality.

The following are the updates worth knowing:

• Format-specific Shopping controls: In January 2025, Google announced new brand exclusion controls for retailer campaigns with product feeds. The update lets retailers apply brand exclusions specifically to Search text ads, while still capturing branded traffic through Shopping ads. In other words, it’s a Search-only exclusion option for retailers.
• Expanded “where ads showed” reporting: In February 2026, Google Ads expanded the “where ads showed” report for Performance Max. Performance Max campaigns now display Search Partner Network placements directly within the “When and where ads showed” report; previously PMax showed empty rows or “Other” categories.
• Account-level placement exclusions: In January 2026, Google Ads started allowing account-level placement exclusions across campaigns, including Performance Max, Demand Gen, YouTube, and Display. This gives you one central place to block unwanted placements.

Note: Starting May 27, 2025, Google began moving brand exclusions in Search campaigns into AI Max settings. This does not affect Performance Max campaigns directly, but it can still create confusion if you manage brand controls across both Search and PMax campaigns. 

Improve your Performance Max Strategy with 9AM 

Performance Max brand exclusions give you more control over where your ads appear and how your campaign performance is measured. 

Whether you want to separate branded and non-branded traffic, reduce wasted spend, or keep PMax from overlapping with branded Search campaigns, the right exclusion strategy can make your reporting cleaner and your acquisition efforts easier to scale.

Key takeaways

• Brand exclusions help stop Performance Max from targeting selected branded searches
• Exclusions apply across Search, Shopping, and YouTube Search inventory
• Shopping ads can still appear for excluded brands if the Shopping setting is enabled
• Brand exclusions and negative keywords serve different purposes inside PMax
• Search Terms Insights can help you identify branded traffic patterns
• Applying exclusions in stages makes performance changes easier to evaluate
• Campaign-level negative keywords now provide more control inside Performance Max
• Measuring non-brand performance helps you understand actual acquisition impact

If you want to improve traffic quality, reduce branded overlap, or get clearer reporting from your Google Ads campaigns, 9AM can help you manage and scale paid media with cleaner attribution and stronger performance visibility. 

Get in touch with us to audit your current Performance Max setup and identify opportunities to improve non-brand performance. 

FAQs

Can I exclude my own brand in Performance Max?

Yes. Many advertisers exclude their own brand in Performance Max when they already run a dedicated branded Search campaign. This helps separate branded and non-branded performance more clearly and gives you a better view of actual acquisition impact.

Do brand exclusions affect Shopping ads?

Yes, but only if you want them to. Google gives you a setting called “Allow Shopping ads on searches that mention excluded brands.” If this is enabled, Shopping ads can still appear for excluded brand searches.

How long do brand exclusions take to apply?

Brand exclusions usually start working shortly after being added, but you should wait around 7 to 14 days before evaluating performance changes properly. If you request a completely new brand entity from Google’s brand library, approval can take 4 to 6 weeks.

Are brand exclusions the same as negative keywords?

No. Brand exclusions block Google-recognized brand entities, while negative keywords block specific search terms or phrases. Brand exclusions are usually better for controlling branded traffic. Negative keywords work better for filtering unwanted queries or intent patterns.

Can I apply brand exclusions in bulk?

Yes. Google Ads allows you to apply brand exclusions across multiple campaigns using bulk edit settings. This is useful if you manage several Performance Max campaigns with separate branded and non-branded structures.

Can you exclude placements in Performance Max?

Yes. Google now supports account-level placement exclusions for Performance Max. This lets you block specific websites, apps, YouTube channels, and placements across eligible campaigns from one centralized exclusion list.

Can Performance Max still show branded traffic after exclusions?

Yes, sometimes. This can happen if Shopping ads are still allowed for excluded brands, the wrong brand entity was selected, or certain branded query variations are still slipping through. In those cases, campaign-level negative keywords can help tighten traffic control further.

Appendix

• https://support.google.com/google-ads/answer/11189316
• https://support.google.com/google-ads/answer/14505308 
• https://support.google.com/google-ads/answer/16756291
• https://blog.google/products/ads-commerce/new-performance-max-features-2025/
• https://searchengineland.com/google-ads-rolls-out-account-level-placement-exclusions-467569
• https://support.google.com/google-ads/answer/14505308

Traffic, ad spend, hook rates, video views, CTR, and conversion rates can show how your campaigns are performing. But they do not always show whether people remember your brand, prefer it, or recommend it.

Trust is one of the clearest signs of brand health. 

Edelman’s 2025 Brand Trust report found that 80% of people trust the brands they use, which shows how closely trust is tied to brand strength and customer behavior.

For performance marketing teams, this indicator is easy to miss. 

You may see strong creative performance in Meta Ads Manager, TikTok Ads Manager, or YouTube Ads, but still have weak brand recall, poor sentiment, or low purchase intent.

This is where brand health metrics help. 

Brand health metrics help you measure the deeper signals behind long-term growth. They show how your audience sees your brand across awareness, perception, consideration, loyalty, advocacy, and competitive visibility.

In this guide, we’ll cover:

• What brand health means and why it matters
• The key brand health metrics, formulas, and survey questions to use
• How to set benchmarks using historical, competitive, industry, and campaign data
• How to build a simple dashboard and turn the data into better marketing decisions

P.S.: If you want to connect brand health with paid media, creative performance, attribution, and customer data, 9AM’s marketing measurement frameworks can help you build a clearer view of what is working across channels. 

Brand Health Benchmarks: Strong Signals and Warning Signs 

You can use the table below as a practical starting point for reading each metric. It shows what to compare, what a healthy signal looks like, and what should raise concern.

What Is Brand Health?

Brand health is the overall strength of a brand in the market and in the minds of customers. It shows whether people know your brand, trust it, consider it, choose it over competitors, and recommend it to others.

A healthy brand usually has strong awareness, positive perception, clear differentiation, high consideration, and loyal customers.

This is why brand health should be checked regularly, the same way you would check any important part of your business. As Dave Foster, Forbes Councils Member, puts it: 

“Businesses should be as invested in their brand health as all of us should be in our personal health. Just as your annual wellness visit is an act of disease prevention, a brand health program is an investment in the future of your business.” (Dave Foster, “Assessing Brand Health: A Practical Checklist For B2B Marketers”)

What Brand Health Tells You

Brand health helps you understand where your brand is strong and where it may be losing ground.

It can show you:

• Recognition: Can people remember your brand name, logo, offer, or category connection when they see your content or ads? 
• Associations: Do they connect your brand with quality, expertise, value, speed, innovation, or any other attribute you want to own? 
• Competitive preference: Are people choosing your brand when they compare options, or are competitors still winning the final decision? 
• Customer loyalty: Do customers stay, buy again, leave positive reviews, refer others, or recommend your brand? 
• Long-term brand value: Are your campaigns creating stronger recall, trust, consideration, and loyalty over time, or are they only driving short-term clicks and conversions? 

Brand Health vs Brand Awareness vs Brand Equity

Brand awareness tells you whether people know your brand exists. Brand health shows how your brand is performing right now across trust, sentiment, consideration, preference, and loyalty. And brand equity looks at the long-term value your brand creates for the business.

All these are related, but they measure different parts of brand performance.

Why Measuring Brand Health Matters

Brand health helps you see what is happening underneath your campaign numbers. Sales, traffic, and conversion rates show current performance, but brand health shows whether your audience is becoming more aware, more trusting, and more likely to choose you repeatedly in the long run. 

1. Reveals Problems Before Revenue Drops

Revenue problems rarely appear out of nowhere. You usually see early warning signs first.

For example:

• Declining sentiment can signal future churn
• Falling awareness can reduce future pipeline
• Lower purchase intent can weaken future sales
• Negative reviews can damage trust before they affect conversion rates

This is why brand health matters for marketing teams. If sentiment drops or consideration slows down, you can fix the issue before it starts hurting acquisition, retention, or sales.

Customers can leave faster than teams expect. PwC found that 32% of customers would stop doing business with a brand they loved after one bad experience, which makes sentiment, satisfaction, reviews, and trust worth tracking early.

2. Helps Connect Brand Marketing to Business Outcomes

Brand marketing can feel hard to measure when you only look at short-term campaign data. Brand health metrics give you a clearer way to connect brand work with business decisions.

They can help you improve:

• Positioning
• Messaging
• Campaign strategy
• Customer experience
• Product development
• Competitive strategy

For example, if people know your brand but do not consider it, your messaging may need sharper proof points. If customers like your product but do not recommend it, you may need to improve trust, onboarding, or customer experience.

This makes brand health tracking useful because it connects paid media, customer feedback, search demand, and long-term brand signals in one view. 

3. Helps Teams Benchmark Progress

Brand health also gives you a clear baseline. Once you know where you stand, you can track whether your brand is getting stronger or weaker over time.

You can benchmark progress against:

• Your previous performance
• Your direct competitors
• Industry standards
• Campaign goals

Unfortunately, Nielsen’s 2025 Annual Marketing Report found that only 32% of global marketers measure media spend holistically across digital and traditional channels. 

So, you should evaluate all those dimensions to understand your brand health. Instead of asking whether your brand “feels stronger,” you can see what changed, where the gap is, and what needs attention next.

The Core Brand Health Metrics to Track

Before you build a brand health dashboard, you need to know which signals actually matter. 

Below, we analyzed brand health metrics that will help you measure how well your brand is known, trusted, considered, chosen, and recommended. 

1. Brand Awareness

Brand awareness measures how familiar your target audience is with your brand. It tells you whether people recognize your name, remember you in the right category, and connect your brand with the problem you solve.

If people are seeing your video ad, Meta campaigns, or Instagram feed content but still do not remember your brand later, you may have reach without real awareness.

Types of Brand Awareness

Brand awareness can show up in a few different ways, depending on how easily people remember or recognize your brand. 

• Unaided awareness: People can name your brand without seeing a prompt or list. 
• Aided awareness: People recognize your brand when they see it in a list of options. 
• Top-of-mind awareness: Your brand is the first one people mention when they think about your category. 

How to Measure Brand Awareness 

You can measure brand awareness through:

• Brand tracking surveys.
• Search volume for branded terms.
• Direct website traffic.
• Social mentions.
• Google Trends.
• Share of search.
• Brand lift studies after major campaigns 

Example Survey Questions

We suggest using questions like: 

• “Which brands come to mind when you think of [category]?”
• “Have you heard of [brand]?”
• “Which of these brands are you familiar with?”
• “Which brand would you name first in this category?”

Benchmark Guidance

Do not judge awareness in isolation. Compare it against:

• Your previous awareness score
• Competitor awareness
• Category leaders
• Brand lift before and after major campaigns
• Branded search growth over time

For example, if your ad spend and video views are increasing but unaided awareness stays flat, your campaigns may be getting attention without making the brand memorable. This is a sign to review your creative strategy, messaging, and brand cues.

2. Brand Recall

Brand recall measures whether people can remember your brand when they need a product or service in your category.

This is stronger than simple recognition. Someone may recognize your brand when they see it in a list, but recall shows whether your brand comes to mind without help.

How to Measure It

You can measure brand recall through: 

• Unaided recall surveys.
• Category association questions.
• Post-campaign recall studies.
• Search behavior around branded and category terms
• Follow-up surveys after Meta campaigns, YouTube Ads, or TikTok campaigns

For video-heavy campaigns, recall studies become even more useful. Google found that 94% of analyzed YouTube campaigns drove a significant lift in ad recall, with an average lift of 80%. 

So if you are running YouTube Ads, Meta campaigns, or TikTok campaigns, recall studies can show whether your video content is helping people remember your brand. 

Brand Recall Formula

For example, if 200 out of 1,000 survey respondents mention your brand without being reminded of it, your brand recall rate is 20%. 

Example Survey Questions

You can ask questions like:

• “Which brands come to mind when you need [product or service]?”
• “Which companies do you remember seeing ads from in this category?”
• “Which brand would you name first for [category]?”

When This Metric Matters Most

Brand recall is useful when you are: 

• Entering a new market
• Running a rebrand
• Educating buyers about a category
• Investing in brand campaigns
• Trying to stand out against competitors

If recall is low, your audience may be seeing your content but not remembering your brand. In such cases, you should review your messaging, brand cues, creative strategy, and campaign consistency. 

3. Brand Recognition

Brand recognition measures whether people can identify your brand when they see your name, logo, slogan, packaging, colors, or visual identity.

This is different from brand recall. Recall asks, “Can people remember you without help?” Recognition asks, “Do people know it is you when they see elements that define your identity?”

How to Measure It

You can measure brand recognition through:

• Aided survey questions
• Logo recognition tests
• Ad recall studies
• Visual identity testing
• Packaging or product image tests
• Creative testing across Meta Ads, TikTok Ads, YouTube Ads, and display campaigns

Example Survey Questions

You can ask questions like:

• “Which of the following brands have you seen before?”
• “Which logo do you recognize from this category?”
• “Have you seen this brand in an ad, store, search result, or social feed?”
• “Which brand does this packaging, slogan, or visual style belong to?”

Why it Matters

Brand recognition helps you understand whether your visual identity is strong enough to stand out. If people see your video ad, Reels placements, Instagram feed ads, or website content but cannot connect it back to your brand, your creative may be getting attention without building recognition.

This is a sign to review your logo placement, brand colors, product shots, on-screen prompts, and overall creative consistency.

4. Brand Sentiment

Brand sentiment measures whether people feel positively, negatively, or neutrally about your brand.

It helps you understand the emotional side of brand health. People may know your brand, but sentiment shows whether that awareness is connected to trust, frustration, excitement, doubt, or confidence.

For example, your Meta Ads or TikTok campaigns may drive strong video views and audience engagement, but if the comments, reviews, or support tickets are mostly negative, your brand health may still be at risk.

How to Measure It

You can measure brand sentiment through:

• Social listening
• Review analysis
• Customer feedback
• Support tickets
• Survey sentiment questions
• Media monitoring
• Comment analysis on Meta Ads, TikTok Ads, YouTube Ads, and organic posts

Brand Sentiment Formula

For example, if you have 800 positive mentions, 120 negative mentions, and 1,000 total mentions, your brand sentiment score is 68%. 

How to interpret brand sentiment 

• Positive sentiment: People trust, like, or feel confident about your brand
• Neutral sentiment: People know your brand, but the emotional connection may be weak
• Negative sentiment: Reputation, product, pricing, service, or messaging issues may be affecting how people see your brand

Example Survey Questions

You can ask questions like:

• “How would you describe your overall feeling toward [brand]?”
• “Do you feel positive, neutral, or negative about [brand]?”
• “What is the main reason for your opinion of [brand]?”
• “How has your perception of [brand] changed recently?”

If sentiment starts dropping, we suggest looking at the themes behind it. Are people complaining about pricing, product quality, customer support, delivery, ad frequency, or unclear messaging? The score gives you the signal, but the comments tell you what to fix.

5. Share of Voice

Share of voice measures how visible your brand is compared with competitors. It shows how much of the category conversation, search visibility, media attention, or ad visibility your brand owns.

For example, if your competitors are showing up more in social conversations, PR mentions, search results, or paid placements, your share of voice may be lower even if your own campaigns are performing well.

Share of Voice Formula

The input can change depending on the channel you are measuring. For example, you might calculate share of voice using social mentions, media mentions, paid impressions, organic search visibility, or review platform visibility. 

Types of Share of Voice

You can track share of voice across:

• Organic search share of voice
• Paid search impression share
• Social media share of voice
• PR and media share of voice
• Review platform visibility
• AI search or share of model mentions, if relevant

Benchmark Guidance

Compare your share of voice against:

• Direct competitors
• Market share
• Previous quarter
• Campaign periods
• Product launch windows

Insider tip: A higher share of voice is not always a win on its own. A spike can come from a strong campaign, but it can also come from negative press, customer complaints, or a product issue.

This is why we always pair share of voice with sentiment. If visibility is rising and sentiment is positive, your brand is gaining healthy attention. If visibility is rising and sentiment is negative, you need to investigate what is driving the conversation.

6. Share of Search

Share of search measures how often people search for your brand compared with competitors in the same category.

It is a useful brand health signal because search behavior shows active interest. If more people are typing your brand name into Google, it usually means your brand is becoming more memorable, trusted, or relevant to the market.

How to Measure It

You can measure share of search through:

• Google Trends
• Google Search Console
• SEO platforms
• Branded keyword volume
• Competitor branded search comparison
• Search demand before and after campaigns

Share of Search Formula

For example, if your brand gets 10,000 branded searches in a month and the total branded search volume across your competitor set is 50,000, your share of search is 20%. 

Why It Matters

Share of search can help you understand whether your marketing is creating real brand demand.

It can show you:

• Whether more people are actively looking for your brand
• Whether your brand demand is growing faster than competitors
• Whether Meta campaigns, YouTube Ads, TikTok campaigns, or PR activity are increasing search interest
• Whether your user acquisition is coming from brand demand or mainly from paid media
• Whether your brand is gaining stronger category visibility over time

If your ad spend, video views, and CTR are rising but share of search is flat, your campaigns may be driving clicks without building deeper brand interest. That is a good time to review your creative strategy, audience targeting, and messaging.

7. Brand Consideration

Brand consideration measures whether people would seriously think about buying from your brand.

This is where awareness starts turning into something more meaningful. People may know your brand exists, but consideration shows whether they see you as a real option when they are comparing choices.

In fact, McKinsey’s consumer decision journey research found that brands in the initial consideration set can be up to three times more likely to be purchased than brands outside it. The research was based on purchase decisions from almost 20,000 consumers across five industries and three continents.

This shows that consideration is such an important brand health metric. If people recognize your brand but do not shortlist it, your awareness is not turning into buying interest yet.

How to Measure It

You can measure brand consideration through:

• Surveys
• CRM pipeline data
• Product page engagement
• Trial or demo requests
• Wishlist or cart behavior
• Comparison page traffic
• High-intent branded search behavior

Example Survey Questions

You can ask questions like:

• “Which of these brands would you consider buying from?”
• “Would you consider [brand] the next time you need [product or service]?”
• “Which brands would make your shortlist?”
• “What would make you more likely to consider [brand]?”

Benchmark Guidance

Track brand consideration by audience segment, such as:

• Existing customers
• Prospects
• Category buyers
• Competitor customers
• High-intent website visitors
• Target accounts or buying committees

If awareness is high but consideration is low, people may recognize your brand without seeing enough reason to choose it. This usually points to gaps in positioning, proof points, pricing, reviews, or competitive differentiation.

8. Purchase Intent

Purchase intent measures how likely people are to buy from your brand within a specific time frame.

It goes one step beyond consideration. Consideration tells you whether someone would shortlist your brand. Purchase intent tells you whether they are close to taking action.

For example, someone may consider your brand after seeing a video ad, reading reviews, or comparing options. But purchase intent shows whether that interest is strong enough to turn into a signup, request of any kind, free download and more, as you can see below.

How to Measure It

You can measure purchase intent through:

• Survey questions
• Trial signups
• Demo requests
• Cart additions
• Quote requests
• Product comparison behavior
• High-intent website actions
• Branded search behavior after campaigns

Example Survey Question

You can ask:

“How likely are you to purchase from [brand] in the next 3 months?”

Suggested Scale

Use a simple scale like:

• Very unlikely
• Unlikely
• Neutral
• Likely
• Very likely

Why it Matters

Purchase intent helps you see whether your marketing is creating real buying interest.

If your Meta Ads, TikTok Ads Manager data, or YouTube Ads show strong video views, hook rates, and audience engagement, but purchase intent stays low, your creative may be getting attention without moving people closer to buying.

This is a sign to review your offer, proof points, pricing, landing page, creative testing framework, and audience targeting.

9. Brand Preference

Brand preference measures whether people choose your brand over the alternatives they know and consider.

This is where brand health gets measured on a more competitive dimension. Someone may be aware of your brand and even consider it, but preference shows whether they would pick you when other options are available.

How to Measure It

You can measure brand preference through:

• Competitive preference surveys
• Win/loss analysis
• Customer interviews
• Review comparisons
• Market research panels
• Sales call feedback
• Competitor comparison page behavior

Example Survey Questions

You can ask questions like:

• “If all options were available at a similar price, which brand would you choose?”
• “Which brand would be your first choice in this category?”
• “Why would you choose that brand over the others?”
• “What would make you choose [brand] instead?”

Why It Matters

Preference is stronger than awareness because it shows whether people see a clear reason to choose you.

It can help you understand:

• Whether your brand has meaningful differentiation
• Whether customers see enough value to choose you over competitors
• Whether your pricing feels justified
• Whether your brand has loyalty potential

If consideration is high but preference is low, buyers may be comparing you but choosing someone else. In our experience, this usually points to gaps in positioning, proof points, customer reviews, social proof, or competitive messaging. 

10. Net Promoter Score

Net promoter score, or NPS, measures customer loyalty and how likely people are to recommend your brand.

It is useful because a recommendation is a strong signal of brand health. If customers are willing to refer you to a friend, colleague, or another buyer, they likely trust your brand enough to put their own name behind it.

How to Measure It

Ask customers one simple question:

“How likely are you to recommend [brand] to a friend or colleague?”

Bain’s Net Promoter System scores this on a 0 to 10 scale and groups responses into promoters, passives, and detractors. 

• Promoters score 9 to 10
• Passives score 7 to 8, and 
• Detractors score 0 to 6

NPS Formula

For example, if 60% of respondents are promoters and 20% are detractors, your NPS is 40. 

Benchmark Guidance

Use NPS benchmarks carefully because scores vary by industry, survey timing, sample size, and customer expectations.

As a general guide:

• Above 0 means you have more promoters than detractors
• Above 20 is generally favorable
• Above 50 is commonly treated as excellent
• Above 80 is very strong, but rare and highly dependent on category

Insider tip: Do not rely only on NPS. Pair it with open-ended feedback: “What is the main reason for your score?” The score will show you how loyal customers feel. Whereas the follow-up answer will show why they feel that way and what you need to improve. 

11. Customer Satisfaction Score

Customer satisfaction score, or CSAT, measures how satisfied customers are with a specific interaction, product, service, or overall experience.

It is different from NPS. NPS measures whether someone would recommend your brand. CSAT measures how happy they were with a particular moment, such as a support call, onboarding flow, purchase experience, or renewal process.

How to Measure It

Ask customers a simple satisfaction question after a key interaction, such as:

“How satisfied were you with your experience?”

You can use a scale like:

• Very dissatisfied
• Dissatisfied
• Neutral
• Satisfied
• Very satisfied

Salesforce explains CSAT as the percentage of respondents who rate themselves as satisfied or very satisfied. For example, if 80 out of 100 respondents choose satisfied or very satisfied, your CSAT score is 80%.

CSAT Formula

For example, if 340 out of 400 respondents say they were satisfied, your CSAT score is 85%. 

Benchmark Guidance

A CSAT score around 70% to 85% is generally considered good, but the right benchmark depends on your industry, sample size, survey method, and customer expectations.

We suggest tracking CSAT by touchpoint instead of looking only at one overall score. A brand may have strong product satisfaction but weak support satisfaction, or strong onboarding satisfaction but poor renewal satisfaction.

Best Use Cases

CSAT is most useful for measuring:

• Customer support experience
• Product onboarding
• Purchase experience
• Renewal process
• Post-service feedback

If CSAT drops after a specific touchpoint, look at the comments, support tickets, and customer feedback around that moment. The score tells you where satisfaction is slipping. The feedback tells you why.

12. Customer Loyalty and Retention

Customer loyalty and retention measure whether customers keep buying from your brand after the first purchase.

This is one of the clearest signs of brand health. If people come back, renew, upgrade, refer others, or stay engaged over time, your brand promise is likely matching the customer experience.

Metrics to Include

You can track loyalty and retention through:

• Repeat purchase rate
• Retention rate
• Churn rate
• Customer lifetime value
• Renewal rate
• Subscription expansion
• Loyalty program engagement
• Referral activity
• Review and testimonial volume

Why It Belongs in Brand Health

Strong brands make customers want to stay. Retention can show whether your product, service, pricing, support, and messaging are aligned with what customers expected when they first bought from you.

For example, if your user acquisition is strong but churn is rising, your campaigns may be bringing in customers who are not staying. This is a signal to review your onboarding, customer support, product experience, and post-purchase communication.

What to Watch for

Look for patterns like:

• High repeat purchase rate with low referral activity
• Strong retention but weak customer lifetime value
• High churn after onboarding
• Low renewal rate after price changes
• Loyalty program engagement dropping over time

When loyalty is weak, we usually look at the gap between what the brand promised and what the customer experienced. This gap is where retention problems usually start.

13. Brand Trust

Brand trust measures whether people believe your brand is credible, reliable, and safe to buy from.

This matters because trust affects almost every part of brand health. If people trust your brand, they are more likely to consider you, choose you, stay with you, and recommend you. If trust is weak, even strong awareness or high traffic may not turn into sales.

In fact, a PwC survey found that 40% of consumers stopped buying from a company because they did not trust it. This makes trust a brand health metric worth tracking before weak trust starts showing up as lower conversion rates and retention, or fewer repeat purchases. 

How to Measure It

You can measure brand trust through:

• Trust surveys
• Review ratings
• Complaint volume
• Customer interviews
• Third-party reputation platforms
• Media sentiment
• Social comments and customer feedback
• Support ticket themes

Example Survey Questions

You can ask questions like:

• “I trust [brand] to deliver on its promises.”
• “I believe [brand] is transparent and reliable.”
• “I feel confident buying from [brand].”
• “I believe [brand] handles customer issues fairly.”
• “I would feel comfortable recommending [brand] to someone else.”

What to Watch For

Trust can weaken for many reasons, such as unclear pricing, poor customer support, product quality issues, negative reviews, or inconsistent messaging.

If trust scores are low, look at the language people use in reviews, support tickets, sales calls, and social comments. 

We usually look for repeated phrases like “not clear,” “hard to reach,” “poor quality,” “misleading,” or “didn’t match expectations.” These patterns can show you where the trust gap is coming from.

14. Brand Associations

Brand associations measure the words, ideas, emotions, and attributes people connect with your brand.

This helps you see whether your positioning is landing the way you intended. You may want people to see your brand as premium, reliable, innovative, affordable, expert-led, or easy to use. Brand association research shows whether those ideas are actually showing up in the market.

How to Measure It

You can measure brand associations through:

• Open-ended survey questions
• Word association tests
• Social listening
• Review mining
• Customer interviews
• Focus groups
• Sales call feedback
• Comment analysis across social and ad platforms

Example Survey Questions

You can ask questions like:

• “What three words come to mind when you think of [brand]?”
• “What do you associate most with [brand]?”
• “How would you describe [brand] to someone else?”
• “Which of these words best describes [brand]?”

What to Use this Metric for

Brand associations can help you evaluate:

• Positioning
• Messaging
• Category fit
• Differentiation
• Reputation
• Emotional connection

If people describe your brand in a way that does not match your intended positioning, your messaging may need work. We recommend looking at the repeated words first because they show which ideas your audience has already attached to the brand.

15. Brand Equity

Brand equity measures the total value your brand adds beyond the product or service itself.

It shows how much strength your brand has built over time. When brand equity is strong, people may choose you even when competitors offer similar features, lower prices, or faster promotions. They trust the name, the experience, and the promise behind the brand.

Indicators of Brand Equity

You can look at signals like:

• Price premium
• Customer loyalty
• Market share
• Brand preference
• Perceived quality
• Advocacy
• Lower acquisition cost
• Higher customer lifetime value

How to Measure It

You can measure brand equity through:

• Brand valuation studies
• Pricing power analysis
• Preference studies
• Customer lifetime value
• Market share trends
• Competitive win rates
• Repeat purchase or renewal behavior
• Referral and advocacy data

Why it Matters

Brand equity helps you understand whether your brand is creating business value over time.

For example, if customers are willing to pay more for your product, renew without heavy discounting, recommend you to others, or choose you over cheaper alternatives, your brand is doing more than driving awareness. It is adding measurable value to the business.

If your brand equity is weak, we suggest looking at pricing power, customer loyalty, perceived quality, and preference first. These areas can show whether the brand has enough trust and differentiation to support long-term growth.

How to Act on Brand Health Data

Once you know which metric is weak, the next step is to connect that signal to other metrics and a clear action. Use this quick guide to decide what to review first:

Brand Health Benchmarks: What Good Looks Like

There is no single “good” brand health score that works for every business. A strong benchmark depends on your market, audience, category, and how you collect the data.

Benchmarks can vary based on:

• Industry
• Market maturity
• Brand size
• Geography
• Audience type
• Survey methodology
• Marketing channel
• Competitor set

This is why your benchmarks should give context, not fixed rules. For example, a 30% awareness score may be strong for a new B2B brand entering a niche market, but weak for a well-known consumer brand in a mature category.

That said, here are some stats you may find interesting:

Brand Awareness Benchmarks

• Unaided (spontaneous) recall: Established brands typically see unaided recall rates of 20–30%; newer brands fall in the 5–15% range, according to Umbrex.
• Aided recognition: Established brands typically land between 60–80% recognition when prompted with a logo or name; newer brands are closer to 30–50%. Unaided awareness above 50% is considered good; above 70% indicates excellent brand recognition and strong market presence, also according to Umbrex.
• Ad-driven awareness lift: Unaided awareness is the hardest brand metric to move; a typical ad campaign delivers just a 0.30-point lift. Mid-funnel metrics like favorability and purchase intent are bigger movers, with brand favorability shifting about 3 points after a typical campaign, as per Disqo.

Share of Voice Benchmarks

• Market leadership target: According to Intently, the average SOV for the leading brand across major industries was 28%, with the top three brands collectively capturing about 65% of all mentions.
• Industry SOV ranges: Travel industry SOV for leading brands ranges from 25–40%; healthcare brands typically fall between 15–30%; food and beverage brands average 10–20%, as per another Umbrex article.
• CPG leaders: Leading CPG companies frequently achieve 25–30% SOV to establish category dominance; for e-commerce stores, even 10% represents significant visibility against competitors, says Opensend.

Net Promoter Score Benchmarks

• Cross-industry B2C range: Average NPS scores for B2C industries range from 26 to 68; for B2B industries, the range is 41 to 68, as per Retently. 
• Global scale: A score of 50 is classified as excellent; 70+ is considered world-class, according to ClearlyRated. 
• Selected industry averages (SurveySensum, 2024): Insurance: ~80; Retail: ~64; E-commerce: ~52; Healthcare: ~46; SaaS/Software: ~40; Communications: ~30; Internet software & services: ~16. 
• Regional context: According to Merren, North American (U.S. & Canada) averages run slightly lower at 35–40 due to higher consumer expectations; European averages sit around 25–35, partly influenced by cultural skepticism and stricter data privacy norms. 

Customer Satisfaction Score Benchmarks

• Cross-industry average: According to Sobot, the average CSAT score across all industries is 78%. 
• General thresholds: 75–85% is broadly considered a "good" score; above 90% puts a brand in the top 5% of companies, as per Armatis. 
• By industry (ACSI / Retently data): SurveySparrow notes that healthcare averages around 80% (ACSI 2024–2025); SaaS targets 78–80%; retail ~76%; ISPs lag at 68%. 
• Social media: According to Fullview, Social media platforms register some of the lowest customer satisfaction scores, averaging only 73. 

The Best Types of Brand Health Benchmarks

To get a clearer view, our team at 9AM compares brand health metrics from a few different angles. 

Internal Benchmarks

Internal benchmarks compare your current performance against your own past performance.

They help you answer questions like:

• Is awareness improving quarter over quarter?
• Is sentiment getting stronger after product updates?
• Is NPS moving up or down after onboarding changes?
• Is branded search growing after a campaign?

This is usually the best starting point because it shows whether your brand is improving over time.

Competitive Benchmarks

Competitive benchmarks compare your brand against direct competitors.

They help you see whether you are gaining or losing ground in the market. For example, your awareness may be growing, but if competitor awareness is growing faster, you may still be falling behind.

Use competitive benchmarks for:

• Positioning
• Share of voice
• Share of search
• Brand preference
• Market visibility
• Win/loss analysis

Industry Benchmarks

Industry benchmarks compare your performance against category norms.

These are useful for executive reporting and goal setting, but they need context. Survey methods, audience quality, sample size, and region can change the meaning of the numbers.

For example, NPS, CSAT, retention, and purchase intent can look very different across SaaS, ecommerce, healthcare, finance, and consumer brands.

Campaign Benchmarks

Campaign benchmarks compare brand health before and after a specific campaign.

They help you see whether a campaign improved awareness, recall, consideration, sentiment, or purchase intent.

For example, after running Meta campaigns, YouTube Ads, TikTok campaigns, or a larger performance marketing push, you can compare:

• Brand awareness before and after the campaign
• Ad recall after exposure
• Branded search lift
• Purchase intent among exposed audiences
• Sentiment changes during the campaign period

How Often Should You Measure Brand Health? 

Most brands should measure brand health quarterly, while tracking faster-moving signals like sentiment, reviews, share of voice, branded search, and direct traffic monthly. A full brand health audit can be done once or twice a year.

The right cadence depends on the metric. Some signals change quickly, while others need more time to show meaningful movement. 

For most marketing teams, a quarterly brand health survey paired with monthly search, sentiment, and visibility tracking gives a practical rhythm.

You do not need to measure every metric every week. Start with the signals that match your current goals. If awareness is the priority, watch recall, share of search, and branded traffic. And if retention is the priority, focus on NPS, CSAT, churn, reviews, and customer feedback.

The goal is simple: measure fast-moving signals frequently, and review deeper brand perception metrics on a longer cycle. 

Brand Health Metrics by Business Type

The right brand health metrics depend on how your business sells, how long the buying cycle is, and what customer behavior matters most. A B2B software company, an e-commerce brand, and a consumer brand will not read brand health the same way.

You can use the sections below to choose the metrics that match your business model.

B2B Brand Health Metrics

For B2B brands, brand health is closely tied to trust, recall, and whether the right accounts see you as a credible option.

Track:

• Brand recall among target accounts
• Consideration among buying committees
• Share of search
• Analyst and review site sentiment
• Pipeline influence
• Win rate
• Customer advocacy
• Referral quality
• Sales conversation themes

These metrics matter because B2B buyers usually compare several vendors before making a decision. If your brand is known but does not make the shortlist, you may need stronger positioning, clearer proof points, or better category visibility.

SaaS brand health metrics

For SaaS brands, brand health connects closely with product experience, retention, and customer trust.

Track:

• NPS
• Product sentiment
• Churn
• Expansion revenue
• Review ratings
• Community engagement
• Branded search
• Customer onboarding feedback
• Feature-level feedback

If branded search is rising but churn is also rising, your demand may be growing faster than customer satisfaction. This is a sign to review onboarding, product expectations, support, and post-sale communication.

E-commerce Brand Health Metrics

For e-commerce brands, brand health shows whether customers trust you enough to buy, return, and recommend.

Track:

• Repeat purchase rate
• Review sentiment
• Social reach
• Direct traffic
• Branded search
• Customer lifetime value
• Referral rate
• Cart behavior
• Post-purchase feedback

If your video ad performance, hook rates, and CTR look strong but repeat purchase is low, your campaigns may be attracting buyers who do not stay. We usually look at product quality, delivery experience, reviews, and post-purchase messaging first.

Consumer Brand Health Metrics

For consumer brands, brand health depends on awareness, emotion, visibility, and preference.

Track:

• Awareness
• Recall
• Preference
• Purchase intent
• Share of voice
• Sentiment
• Loyalty
• Brand associations
• Social proof

Consumer buyers may move faster than B2B buyers, so signals like recognition, sentiment, reviews, and purchase intent can tell you a lot about how your brand is performing in the market.

Turn Brand Health Insights into Growth with 9AM 

Brand health is strongest when you measure it as a complete picture instead of a single score. Start with the metrics that match your current goals, set clear benchmarks, track changes over time, and use the data to improve your messaging, customer experience, creative strategy, and long-term growth.

Key takeaways

• Brand health shows whether people know, trust, consider, choose, and recommend your brand.
• Sales, traffic, video views, and conversion rates do not show the full picture of brand strength.
• Awareness, recall, and recognition help you measure how memorable your brand is.
• Sentiment, trust, and associations show how people feel about your brand.
• Share of voice and share of search help you compare brand visibility against competitors.
• Consideration, preference, and purchase intent show whether awareness is turning into buying interest.
• NPS, CSAT, loyalty, and retention reveal whether customers are satisfied enough to stay and recommend you.
• Strong benchmarks should combine historical, competitive, industry, and campaign data.

If you are looking to connect brand health with creative performance and customer data, 9AM can help you build a clearer measurement framework. As a performance marketing agency in New York, we help brands turn marketing data into sharper decisions across campaigns, channels, and growth strategy.

Book a strategy call with us to see where your brand health and performance data can work better together. 

FAQs

What are brand health metrics?

Brand health metrics show how well your brand is known, trusted, considered, preferred, and recommended by your target audience. Common metrics include awareness, recall, sentiment, share of voice, share of search, consideration, preference, NPS, CSAT, retention, and brand trust. 

What is the most important brand health metric?

There is no single best brand health metric. If you are building visibility, track awareness, recall, and share of search. If people know you but are not buying, track consideration, preference, purchase intent, and trust. And if you want to measure customer strength, track NPS, CSAT, retention, churn, and referrals. 

How to measure brand awareness?

You can measure brand awareness through aided awareness surveys, unaided recall surveys, top-of-mind awareness questions, branded search volume, direct website traffic, social mentions, and share of search. A simple question to ask is: “Which brands come to mind when you think of [category]?” 

How to measure brand sentiment?

You can measure brand sentiment by reviewing social mentions, customer reviews, survey responses, support tickets, media coverage, and comments on ads or organic posts. Classify mentions as positive, neutral, or negative, then look at the repeated themes behind the score, such as pricing, support, product quality, delivery, or messaging. 

What is the difference between brand health and brand tracking?

Brand health is the current condition of your brand. It shows whether people know, trust, consider, choose, and recommend you. Brand tracking is the ongoing process of measuring those signals over time through surveys, search data, social listening, reviews, CRM data, and customer feedback. 

How can 9AM help measure brand health?

At 9AM, we help brands move from scattered reports to a clearer brand health measurement setup. We define the right metrics, organize data from different channels, build dashboards, and turn the findings into practical marketing decisions. 

Appendix

• https://www.edelman.com/trust/2025/trust-barometer/special-report-brands
• https://www.forbes.com/councils/forbesagencycouncil/2025/09/03/assessing-brand-health-a-practical-checklist-for-b2b-marketers/
• https://www.pwc.com/ng/en/assets/pdf/experience-is-everything.pdf
• https://www.nielsen.com/news-center/2025/nielsen-releases-its-2025-annual-marketing-report-looking-at-the-power-of-data-driven-marketing/
• https://agency.googleblog.com/2015/03/measuring-impact-of-youtube-ads-on.html
• https://brandstrat.co/wp-content/uploads/2021/12/The-Consumer-Decision-Journey.pdf.pdf
• https://www.netpromotersystem.com/about/measuring-your-net-promoter-score/
• https://www.surveymonkey.com/learn/customer-feedback/what-is-good-csat-score/
• https://www.pwc.com/us/en/library/trust-in-business-survey/customer-trust-in-your-sector.html
• https://umbrex.com/resources/ultimate-guide-to-company-analysis/ultimate-guide-to-marketing-analysis/brand-awareness-analysis/ 
• https://resources.disqo.com/industry-level-differences-in-brand-lift-and-outcomes-lift 
• https://intently.ai/blog/calculating-share-of-voice 
• https://umbrex.com/resources/ultimate-guide-to-company-analysis/ultimate-guide-to-marketing-analysis/share-of-voice-analysis/ 
• https://www.opensend.com/post/social-share-of-voice-sov-statistics-ecommerce 
• https://www.retently.com/blog/good-net-promoter-score/ 
• https://www.clearlyrated.ai/industry-benchmark/nps-benchmarks-for-the-it-services-industry 
• https://www.surveysensum.com/blog/nps-score-by-industry 
• https://merren.io/what-is-a-good-net-promoter-score-2/ 
• https://www.sobot.io/article/csat-survey-benchmarks-top-industries-2025-comparison/ 
• https://www.armatis.com/en/2026/01/16/what-is-a-good-csat-score-discover-your-industry-benchmarks/ 
• https://surveysparrow.com/blog/csat-benchmarks/ 
• https://www.fullview.io/blog/csat-benchmarks-by-industry