The Playbook

Tactics, teardowns, and hard-won lessons from shipping thousands of high-performing static ads.

All AI & Creative Ops Brand & Consistency Case Studies Creative Strategy Creative Testing Creative Volume Performance & Metrics Scaling Paid Social

AI & Creative Ops

Design Tokens for Ad Creatives: Encoding Brand DNA Into AI Generations

Design tokens—the atomic variables of visual identity—enable AI to generate on-brand ads at scale, slashing approval cycles and eliminating creative drift in D2C campaigns.

Gary Hui· May 27, 2026 · 13 min read

AI & Creative Ops

From brief to feed in an afternoon: the CO8 workflow

A practical, repeatable workflow for going from a rough idea to a batch of on-brand, test-ready static ads — in hours, not weeks.

Gary Hui· May 12, 2026 · 2 min read

AI & Creative Ops

Building a creative system: from one-off assets to an engine

Stop making ads one at a time. Build a repeatable system that turns ideas into on-brand creative on demand — the difference between a team that ships and one that scales.

Gary Hui· Apr 26, 2026 · 2 min read

AI & Creative Ops

AI Agents as Creative Negotiators: Automating Media Buyer and Designer Handoffs for D2C

Discover how AI agents can automate the handoff between media buyers and designers, transforming creative negotiations into scalable workflows for D2C brands.

Gary Hui· Apr 25, 2026 · 13 min read

AI & Creative Ops

AI Creative Ops: Automating the Review Cycle for Image Ads at Scale

Stop letting review bottlenecks throttle your ad output. Here's how AI-powered creative ops can automate approval flows for high-volume image ads without sacrificing quality.

Gary Hui· Apr 16, 2026 · 5 min read

AI & Creative Ops

Writing prompts that produce winning ads

Generation is only as good as the intent behind it. A sharp prompt is really a sharp brief — here is how to write one that yields ads worth testing.

Gary Hui· Apr 10, 2026 · 2 min read

AI & Creative Ops

Embedded Performance Modulator: Attaching Tiny Per-Pixel Learning Rates to Diffusion Steps That Update by Cluster Prediction Error

By embedding per-pixel learning rates into diffusion steps and updating them via cluster prediction error, we unlock a new mechanism for dynamic ad creative optimization that adapts in real time.

Gary Hui· Mar 31, 2026 · 13 min read

AI & Creative Ops

Social Commerce and CO8: Using Generative Ads to Retarget Customers Inside Nested Apps

Discover how CO8 generative ads solve retargeting challenges inside nested apps—boosting social commerce ROI with AI-crafted, consistent creatives.

Gary Hui· Mar 25, 2026 · 8 min read

AI & Creative Ops

From education to conversion: the content-to-creative pipeline

Considered purchases like health products are won by educating before you convert. Here is how to turn knowledge into a pipeline of performance creative.

Gary Hui· Feb 25, 2026 · 2 min read

Browse by topic

Performance Marketing360 Static Ads311 Creative Testing301 Creative Strategy275 Creative Volume222 Ad Fatigue221 Scaling188 AI Creative185 Paid Social129 D2C Growth124 Brand Consistency86 Creative Ops33 Case Study21

Stay sharp

Get the Playbook in your inbox

New teardowns and tactics on high-performing static ads. No fluff.