Ember & Oak Cut Creative Testing Costs by 47%

The challenge

Ember & Oak’s three-person creative team shipped about 30 candle and diffuser concepts a month. They were fast and fully booked, but most concepts died in testing, and every dead one cost shoot time, editing time and ad spend.

Each concept got roughly $600 across Meta and Pinterest, and only 1 in 12 beat the control. That added up to $18,000 a month in test media and $7,200 per winning creative, with ideas coming mostly from mood boards.

The solution

On the Pro plan, Ember & Oak adopted one principle: no concept gets shot without evidence that something like it already works. Every Monday, the team spends 90 minutes finding proof in the Ad Library before anyone picks up a camera.

• Ad Spy to save only ads live for 21+ days with rising reach, which cut the idea list by half.

• Brand Tracker to follow the 22 home and lifestyle brands that test the most new creative.

• Funnels to catch offers pushed on ads, emails and landers at once, like scent quiz pages.

• Magic AI to spot saturated angles and turn each reference ad into a draft script.

“We used to measure the team on how much we shipped. Now we measure how much of it wins. Fewer shoots, better shoots, and time to make things beautiful again.”

Marcus Bell

Creative Lead, Ember & Oak

The results

Six months later, Ember & Oak tests 18 concepts a month instead of 30. Test spend dropped from $18,000 to $9,540, the hit rate rose from 1 in 12 to 1 in 4, cost per winner fell to $2,120, and monthly revenue grew from $210k to $315k.