Get a pre-vetted creative strategist inside your brand or agency.
Finding great creative strategists is hard. We do the legwork for you.
The empty seat is the expensive part.
A bad hire costs you a quarter of the year. It takes about three months to be sure, another to unwind it, and two more to replace them, and the account runs on last season's creative for all of it.
Recruiters cannot evaluate this role. There is no credential for creative strategy, so a recruiter ends up screening for keywords and tenure. That is why the shortlist reads well and the interviews go badly.
Your performance is waiting on the seat. The platforms have taken most of the skill out of media buying, which leaves creative as the thing that still moves the number. Every week the seat sits empty is a week of testing you never get back.
The vetting
Almost everyone gets cut.
We start by going through the ad accounts someone has actually run, asking which ads were theirs, what they changed, and what the numbers did on either side of it. Most people stop at this stage.
Everyone still standing then answers the same question, which is what they would do with a losing account over a single week, day by day. Vague answers are the fastest disqualifier we have, and they take out most of the rest.
After that we go through their results, which only count when they come with a baseline. We want to know what control was, what beat it, and by how much, and we follow up on the ones that sound too clean.
Whoever is left sits with us for an hour on a real ad account, with no take-home and no panel, while we watch them diagnose it. That hour is where you find out whether someone can actually think, and the people who come through it are the roster.
How placement works
Tell us what you sell, who buys it, what your creative is doing now, and what a good hire has to be good at. The form takes a few minutes.
Inside 14 days you are interviewing two or three finalists, pulled from the roster and matched to your account. Each of them has already spent an hour working a real ad account with us, so the part you cannot test in an interview is done before you meet.
You pay a placement fee spread over the first three months. If the strategist is not working out inside 90 days, we replace them or you stop paying.
How we work
We would rather cut too many than place one who cannot think.
We spent years inside DTC ad accounts, first running them and then hiring the people who run them. We kept making the same mistake: hiring someone whose deck was better than their thinking, and finding out in month three. The only thing that ever caught it early was sitting with someone while they worked an account, so that is what we do now. Every strategist on this roster has spent an hour doing exactly that with us, and it is why the roster stays small.
For strategists
The work arrives without a pitch.
Brands reach us already knowing what they need and already sold on paying for it. You skip the proposal and go straight to a working session.
You never pay a fee, because the client covers it. Once you make the roster you stay on it, and we come to you when something fits.
The roster is invite-only. We approach strategists directly.
- You never pay a fee
- No take-home projects
- One hour on a real account
- Full time or fractional
Questions
What does a creative strategist actually do?
A creative strategist decides what ads get made and why. They read the ad account to work out which angles and formats are carrying it, research the customer until they can name the objection worth attacking, write the brief and the hook, and then run the testing loop to see what beats control. Designers, editors and media buyers all work from that direction, and the strategist is the person who sets it.
What does it cost to hire a creative strategist?
You pay a placement fee spread over the first three months. If the strategist is not working out inside 90 days, we replace them or you stop paying. Talking to us is free, and so is meeting finalists. In the wider market a full-time creative strategist typically runs $90k to $160k a year depending on seniority and category, and fractional engagements usually land between $4k and $12k a month.
How fast can you place someone?
You meet two or three finalists within 14 days of telling us what you need. Because everyone on the roster was vetted long before you spoke to us, the only thing left to arrange by then is the calendar.
What is the guarantee?
If the placement is not working inside 90 days, we replace the strategist or you stop paying. We would rather absorb that work ourselves than leave you carrying a hire that is not landing.
Should I hire a fractional or a full-time creative strategist?
The answer tends to follow how much creative you need rather than how much revenue you do. If you are shipping fewer than roughly twenty new concepts a month, a fractional strategist working a few days a month is usually the better buy. Past that point the cost of coordinating a part-time person starts to outweigh what you save on salary, and you are better off hiring full time. Tell us your spend and your concept volume and we will give you a straight answer on which one fits.
Which industries do you place into?
Mostly DTC and ecommerce brands, some SaaS, and the agencies that serve them. If you sit outside that, mention it when you get in touch, because we would rather tell you we are the wrong fit than hand you someone who is guessing at your category.
How are your creative strategists vetted?
There are four stages, and almost everyone is cut before the last one. We go through the real ad accounts someone has run instead of reading a case-study deck. Everyone answers the same process question, which is what they would do with a losing account over a single week, day by day. Any result they quote has to come with a baseline before we count it. Then we spend a live hour with them on a real ad account, with no take-home.
Do strategists pay to join the roster?
Strategists never pay anything, at any stage. The hiring brand or agency pays the placement fee.