Your best ad stopped working last month. Maybe it was gradual (like your CTR started dipping, CPAs started to creep up, budget skyrocketed), or maybe it was sudden. Either way, you did what everyone does: made more ads. Tested new hooks. Tried a UGC version. Brought in a new editor.

But nothing hit the same.

If that's you, I feeeeel you. 🤯 The struggle to keep your ads under control is real.

This guide is an under-the-hood look at what a real, emergency creative strategy actually looks like. I'll walk through a real brand example that has exactly this same problem, show you the psychological frameworks that are most likely to fix it, and then build the same strategy from scratch for a fictional brand so you can see exactly how to apply it to yours.

By the end, you'll understand:

• Why your customer's emotional journey determines your creative — not trends, not competitors, not gut feel

• Where the gap is that's killing your AOV (and why you keep missing it)

• How to build creative that compounds instead of competing with itself

Time to read: ~8 minutes.

Let's get into it.

Part 1: The Original Grain Story

Before we walk through the system, let's look at a real-world example:

A Premium Brand Stuck Guessing

The Situation

I worked with a brand last year that had everything going for them. Premium product. Unique materials. Strong brand recognition. Beautiful photography.

But their marketing strategy was purely tactical.

They didn't really understand why people were buying, just that they were. Which meant they couldn't recreate any win they saw in the account consistently.

Over time, fatigue set in. Costs started climbing.

They were stuck in the performance marketing hamster wheel: launch ad, see if it works, make more like it if it does, try something different if it doesn't. Repeat forever...

The Symptoms

Here's what this looked like in their metrics:

• Inconsistent performance — one week an ad would crush, the next week the exact same concept would flop

• Discount dependency — to hit revenue targets, they kept leaning on promotions, eroding their premium positioning

• Creative fatigue — ads would work for a few weeks, then die, leaving the team constantly scrambling

• Scaling ceiling — they couldn't confidently increase ad spend because nothing was predictable

The real problem was that they were treating every customer the same: creating ads for a generic "product buyer" instead of understanding the distinct psychological drivers that actually caused someone to hit purchase.

The Turning Point

Instead of coming in and analyzing their hooks, I skipped the usual "agency-style" audit and started digging into actual customer language: reviews, support tickets, social media, post-purchase surveys.

I wasn't looking for testimonials I could use in ads...I was looking for subtext"

Subtext = the implicit, unspoken meaning beneath verbal communication and actions, often used to manage social dynamics, protect emotions, or navigate power structures.

Subtext was key here, because it quickly told me why people were buying. I wasn't looking for 'this product is great', I was looking for why they felt they needed to say that in the first place. For their gifting audience (which was a significant portion of their revenue) the purchase had nothing to do with the products features.

It was about recognition.

The person receiving the gift was someone who worked hard, often felt overlooked despite their contributions, and the gifter wanted to show them: "I see you. You're worth everything to me."

The product wasn't the point. It was just the object they attached that message to.

Everything changed when the brand started assimilating that key insight.

The Insight That Changed Everything

The Discovery

This had been selling with messaging like:

• "Handcrafted, unique, and unlike anything else."

• "Unique materials built to last"

• "Premium quality, premium brand"

This messaging was perfectly accurate, but it was completely missing the point.

The gifter didn't care about exotic materials, they cared about showing someone that all those late nights, all that hard work, all those times they felt invisible—someone noticed.

The Execution

So we pivoted. I had them stack a test of just 9 ads (3 ads per messaging angle), designed to hit the deeper desires of the market. The creative that broke through was fascinating:

"Show him he's worth every second."

Just 7 words. Zero mention of materials or craftsmanship. Pure emotional truth.

The Results - In just 40 days, we saw:

• 2X Facebook ad spend while maintaining ROAS

• 35% increase in AOV

• 25% revenue growth

• 33% lift in LTV

We also broke their discount dependency because perceived value went up, promotions went down, and the ads lasted over a year — "Show him (or variations of: dad, your husband, your partner, etc.) he's worth every second" remained a top performer for 12+ months

Key Point: This wasn't a lucky creative home run (which is typically how creative strategy works). It was the result of a systematic psychological approach that can be replicated for any brand in any category.

Let me show you the frameworks that made it work:

The Psychology Behind a 90 Day Reset (And Why Random Testing Doesn't Work)

Framework 1: The 3-Self Theory

According to science (Self Discrepancy Theory) every human on earth operates within three versions of themselves:

• Past Self — who they were, what they've been through

• Present Self — who they are now, their current identity

• Future Self — who they want to become

Almost every account I've audited only speaks to Future Self. "Become a better you." "Achieve your goals." "Future-proof your health." Which is fine, but it becomes a limited asset quickly.

The above gifter insight worked because it addressed all three selves of the recipient simultaneously:

Past Self: "All those late nights. All that hard work. Times he felt invisible."

Present Self: "He's 100% worth recognition."

Future Self: "Reminded him of his worth every time he checks the time."

(⭐️ Pro Tip: When you make ads that validate Past Self, recognize Present Self, and honor Future Self in one message, you create emotional resonance that features and benefits simply cannot compete with.)

Framework 2: Valence & Intensity

Not all emotions are equal in marketing. Put simply, humans typically experience multiple emotions all at once, in varying levels of strength, potency, and longevity. According to science:

• Valence = how positive or negative an emotion is

• Intensity = how strongly someone feels it

• 
  

The gifting insight hit a very high-intensity positive valence. But here's the sophisticated part: it also acknowledged negative valence first (feeling overlooked, invisible) before resolving into positive.

This is emotional contrast (AKA: the creation of a really good mental story) is one of the most powerful psychological triggers in decision-making.

The message says: "I see that you've felt invisible (negative valence). And I'm going to change that (positive resolution). This gift proves you matter (high intensity)."

That's how you create widespread ad account change in such a short amount of time.

Framework 3: The TEEP Model

Every customer moves through four phases during their journey to the purchase. Regardless of your category, product, or brand, customers will morph through:

• T — Trigger Phases: This is the moment someone becomes aware they have a problem or desire.

• E — Exploration Phase: This is the research phase, where they're still figuring out if this problem is worth solving, and what the industry (not just your brand) has to offer.

• E — Evaluation Phase: They then start comparing solutions, deciding which one aligns best with their identity.

• P — Purchase Phase: This is the moment they commit.

I see a lot of brands only building creative for Trigger and Purchase. They skip Exploration and Evaluation entirely—which means they're absent during the phases where customers are most actively deciding whether they want to buy from you.

Skipping any of these 4 phases causes more problems than a lot of marketers realize. If you don't stay connected to your customers during their entire journey, you run the risk of priming them to buy from someone else...

Which is why you must build creative from the ground up, hitting all 4 phases year round, and attuning it to what your customer wants most.

But enough about the psychology.

Let's get to the real reason we're here: how to rest a dying ad account in just 90 days:

Building Your 90-Day Recovery Plan

Now let's apply this same system to an example category and build a 90 day recovery plan so you can see how the frameworks translate regardless of what you're selling.

Note: TaillorMade is an entirely fictitious brand used for demonstration purposes only. If you want to see how I would build this for your brand, book a call with me.

The Diagnosis — What's Actually Broken

Meet TaillorMade: a premium fresh dog food subscription. They offer premium dog food priced around $4–8/day depending on dog size. They currently compete with Farmer's Dog, Ollie, Nom Nom.

They've got a strong product. Happy customers. Beautiful branding. But their ad account has been sliding for over 3 months. They can't get anything to hit, and more competitors are flooding the market. Currently they have:

• AOV stuck at $180 (2-week trial box)

• 60% of trial customers churning before converting to subscription

• High CAC ($85) that only made sense if customers stayed 6+ months

• Creative performance declining—what worked in Q1 stopped working by Q3

Their ads all follow the same basic creative strategy pattern: happy dog photos, "human-grade ingredients," "vet-approved nutrition," "your dog deserves better than kibble." This messaging isn't wrong. Just not enough.

So here's what we do...

The TEEP Diagnosis

First we want to map their existing creative against TEEP and find out whether they're truly missing the messaging mark, or whether they're just not staying attached to their customer long enough. We do this by pulling all their ads into a GPT and having it categorize for:

• Trigger Ads ✅ — The GPT says we have this phase covered (guilt about feeding kibble seems to be their strongest messaging angle)

• Exploration ❌ — We're completely missing ads that cover this. In fact, over the last 6 months, we can see a clear slide in ads specifically built to cover this phase...which has me wondering if this is why they started seeing a decline in performance.

• Evaluation ⚠️ — This phase is a bit weak, but we do have some ads covering this. They're all product-focused however, which, if their customers are typical ones, is irrelevant at this stage. People have already done their product homework...now they need emotional alignment to purchase.

• Purchase ✅ — We've got this covered (trial offers, guarantees). The brand doesn't need anymore direct response ads, just more connection further up in the funnel.

(Prompt: "Use this prompt: Look at the following data and identify which TEEP phase (Trigger Phase, Exploration Phase, Evaluation Phase, and Purchase Phase) each ad targets and flag any that feel unclear or multi-phase.")

TaillorMade has a clear TEEP structure, but only built ads to create awareness and ads to close the sale. Nothing in between. No content helping people understand why fresh food actually matters beyond vague "it's better nutrition" angle.

People would see a Trigger ad, start researching on their own. If TaillorMade wasn't part of that conversation, by the time someone came back to evaluate, TaillorMade looked like just another fresh food brand.

TO SOLVE THIS:

We need to build a better TEEP structure so we're covering the entire customer journey year round. We'll build a stack of 5 ads per TEEP category, each designed to expand our reach at each stage of the funnel...that way we can prep for the next part of the 90 day reset.

Ideally, we would set our ad account up with:

• 1 initial campaign

• 4 ad sets (1 per TEEP category)

• 5 ads per ad set

We do this so that each TEEP phase gets its own adset. This gives us a great structure for managing budget during this initial test (using ABO) while we wait to see which parts of the funnel need attention. We'll set specific metrics to track for each TEEP stage (a topic for another post), then get ready for the next step in the 90 Day reset...

(Note: once we start to see traction, I typically like to expand this structure to campaign-level TEEP structures: one campaign per TEEP phase, with individual adsets directed towards other things like product, avatars, etc.)

HOMEWORK for you, the reader: Wanna do this for yourself? Pull your last 30 days of ads. Can you identify which TEEP phase each one is designed to move? If not, your creative strategy is random and you'll always need thousands of them to scale, so go through this week and see where you're covered, and where you need more support.

Mapping the Emotional Journey

What the Research Revealed

After setting up our account, it's time to dig into the data.

TaillorMade may have already spent weeks sifting through customer language analysis—reviews, Reddit threads, breed-specific Facebook groups, cancellation surveys—but I'm 100% certain they weren't looking for that subtext gold we need to find in order to get the account back on track.

The conventional assumption in dog food is that people buy premium dog food for better health outcomes and cleaner ingredients. Which is true, but entirely surface-level.

But after looking for the subtext, here's what people were actually saying, beneath the "it's great!" reviews:

"I feel like a bad dog mom when I just dump kibble in a bowl. Like he's just existing. Not being cared for."

"When I prep his food in the morning, I feel like I'm actually taking care of him. Not just feeding him."

"Everyone talks about self-care. This is care for the one being in my life who gives me unconditional love."

This is a key insight here, and takes a keen eye to notice: the decision to switch to a better dog food option wasn't about the dog at all. It was about the owner's identity as a caregiver.

The eventual purchase was an identity statement: "I'm the kind of person who doesn't cut corners on those I love."

The Valence & Intensity Map

With that insight in mind, I can start mapping the emotional journey with precision:

• Trigger Phase — Negative valence, medium intensity (we're going after those feelings of guilt and inadequacy as a dog owner first).

• Exploration Phase — Shifting negative to positive (we'll start opening up curiosity and end with hope to help people attach to our message).

• Evaluation Phase — Positive, medium-high intensity (at this point, they'reready to commit, they just need to hear more differentiation of brand messaging).

• Purchase Phase — High positive, very high intensity (we've now activated pride, and self-validation which should lead to higher quality, easier purchases.)

TaillorMade's ads were emotionally flat when they started. They stayed at medium positive valence throughout. "Better ingredients! Happier dog! Convenient delivery!" Nothing wrong with it—but they didn't have ads that built emotional momentum either.

The 12-Week Emotional Arc

• Weeks 1–3: Negative valence, medium intensity — we start by creating productive discomfort. "You meal prep. You buy organic. But your dog eats the same processed kibble you swore you'd upgrade 'someday.'"

• Weeks 4–6: Shifting to neutral — we then validate and educate. We launch long-form content that builds the Exploration phase since it didn't exist before. No selling. Pure teaching.

• Weeks 7–9: Neutral to positive, building intensity — next, we show the identity shift. We launch new UGC-style content of highly-aware owners caring for their dogs, making the behavior feel achievable rather than aspirational.

• Weeks 10–12: High positive, very high intensity — Finally, we make the decision feel inevitable. Speak directly to Future Self. Under no circumstances are we trying to convince people at this stage...they should have already done that in the 3 phases above. We just need to acknowledge what they already know is true about themselves.

HOMEWORK for you, the reader: Look at your top 10 performing ads. What valence are they triggering? If they're all hitting the same emotional note, you're not building momentum (be prepared for things to start tanking soon). You're repeating yourself. Revamp your messaging across your ads so you're sticking with your customers while they journey inside themselves.

Your 90-Day Reset Plan

If you want to reset your account and get back to scaling within the next 90 days, here's what to do:

During this 90-day reset, every piece of creative has a specific psychological job and every phase builds on the last. Nothing gets made without a clear answer to: what emotional movement is this designed to create?

Phase 1: Research (Weeks 1–2)

Before building anything, we go deep into actual customer language. Gather as many reviews, Reddit threads, cancellation surveys, and support transcripts as you can. We're not looking for product feedback or interesting fun facts here, we want to identify the subtext your customers are communicating as quickly as possible.

Throw all of this into Gemini or Claude and ask it to extract:

1. The overall subtext your customers are communicating

2. Their trigger language

3. Their exploration language

4. Their evaluation language

5. And their purchase language

6. BONUS if you can find the underlying emotional pattern driving each phase.

(Prompt: "Analyze the following data and tell me: The overall subtext your customers are communicating

1. Their trigger language

2. Their exploration language

3. Their evaluation language

4. And their purchase language

5. BONUS if you can find the underlying emotional pattern driving each phase.")

Done systematically, this should produce enough psychological insight to build a 90-day creative strategy. Everything after this is application. We're taking 2 weeks to do this so that we slow down, double check our findings, and accurately identify what's driving our customers most.

Phase 2: Trigger + Early Exploration (Days 1–30)

Psychological goal: Move people from vague guilt or concern to active awareness that this problem is worth solving—and solvable.

During this phase, we want to build Trigger creative that creates productive discomfort. It doesn't sell, necessarily, it just illuminates. Go for a negative valence, medium intensity. Cognitive dissonance between the customer's values and their current behavior is key here.

Then we'll start fortifying our Exploration content to fill the gap that almost every brand is missing. Be super intentional about this: we want to show educational content that builds trust and answers the research phase on your terms—not a competitor's. No selling. Pure teaching.

Example: "Why kibble became the default (and what the last 20 years of pet nutrition research actually says)"

Phase 3: Deep Exploration + Evaluation (Days 31–60)

Psychological goal: Move people from "I should probably do something" to "I know what I'm looking for and I'm ready to decide."

This where things get fun. We'll move to building the identity bridge content that connects the product to who the customer is, not just what they need. Show what it looks and feels like to be someone who does this. Make it achievable, not aspirational.

Evaluation creative differentiates, but not on features. Make your ads stand on some sort of emotional truth. This will show your customers why you are the brand of choice, and no one else.

Example: "Every fresh food brand will tell you about their ingredients. Here's what we'll tell you about you."

Phase 4: Purchase + Retention (Days 61–90)

Psychological goal: Convert trial customers to subscribers, move subscribers toward premium, and create the identity reinforcement loop that drives LTV.

This is where AOV actually moves.

We'll build a 3-Self email sequence to match the work we're doing in the ad account:

1. Past Self validation on Day 7

2. Present Self recognition on Day 10

3. Future Self alignment on Day 14

All this will be deployed systematically across the trial period so we stick with people throughout the journey and boost our chances of our ads actually righting themselves in the ad account.

Example: "Some people feed their dog. You care for yours. The Premium plan is just what that looks like when it's complete."

How the Frameworks Stack

TEEP gives you the map so you know what to run over the next 90 days. Valence & Intensity (that subtext) gives you the emotional direction. 3-Self gives you the identity lever. Identity-congruent purchasing gives you the AOV unlock.

None of these frameworks work in isolation. Together they create a system where every ad has a specific psychological job, every phase builds momentum, and every purchase decision feels inevitable rather than effortful.

That's the difference between creative that works for a week and creative that works for a year.

What This Looks Like When We Work Together

If you're reading this and recognizing your brand—flat AOV, discount dependency, creative that used to work and suddenly doesn't—here's how I can help: Book a FREE 30-minute discovery call with me. We'll diagnose exactly where your creative system is breaking down, and what the 90-day fix looks like for your brand.