I Hired 100+ Creative Strategists | Here's Exactly What Gets You Paid $10K/month transcript

So, I've been working as a media buyer and creative strategist for the last 10 years. And in this video, I'm going to show you everything that you need to know today to become a real creative strategist. I'm going to take you through the skills that you actually need to have and the tools that brands and agencies expect you to know and use and how to land clients, how to build a portfolio from zero, and actually make real money from this.

So, if you're a video editor or a UGC creator and you really want to level up and make that next level income by becoming a creative strategist, this video is absolutely for you. And I'm so glad that you're here. So, let's first talk about why a creative strategy is more important than ever in 2026. And when it comes down to it, creative strategy is actually the role that has the most leverage right now on a growth team.

So, let me explain why. So in the Facebook ads days of old, you actually did a lot of your targeting manually by using lookalike audiences and interest audience and stacking those in intricate ways so that you could actually reach your right audience. And now that is completely obsolete. The way that you are actually able to target your customer now is solely through the creative. So this means that the person who actually decides the messaging to use on the ads and what the ads actually look like has suddenly become the most important person because they are in charge of making sure that that ad is getting to the right people who are going to convert.

And the way that I like to succinctly define this role is that a creative strategist grows businesses by deciding what types of ad creative to run on paid social based on insight and performance. And another big thing to underscore is the creative and creative strategist doesn't actually stand for you get to be creative even though that is a byproduct that a lot of people get to experience in this role. What the creative and creative strategist actually stands for is you are able to strategize the right creative that grows revenue.

It's not a traditional creative role and it's certainly not based on vibes which is why this role often sits on growth teams not creative teams because they are directly tied to driving revenue. And because this role is so closely tied to revenue, I hypothesize that this role is actually going to be the highest paid role on growth teams in the very near future. And if you can actually learn and develop the skill and actually grow revenue through ad creative, you are going to be indispensable and you are going to be frankly worthy of a higher salary band.

So let's really go into the nitty-gritty of what a creative strategist actually does so that you understand what type of skills you're going to really have to build to succeed in this role. So yes, functionally we have this as the core job description, but there are going to be several line items that creative strategists are going to go through every day. Number one, creative strategists have to be excellent at research.

In fact, David Oggov actually build himself as his namesake agency's research director, not creative director. And by research, this typically means pouring over customer insights like reviews, what they're talking about on Reddit, the type of content they organically love to feed on and also taking note of what your competitors are doing. You know, taking all of that information and really mining it for insight and taking that information.

Creative strategists know how to do actual strategy. So, they know how to decide which angles are actually going to drive curiosity for the right type of customer. They understand which awareness levels they actually have to target to fill and flourish their funnel. And they have a great hook toolkit to make sure that they're grabbing their attention initially in the right way. And they also understand their core personas and how to understand if they're actually accurately reaching those personas.

And then after they have that strategy right, then they're going to move into briefing and concepting. So, they're going to be writing those briefs, those hooks, and the copy that's going to guide that execution. And I hate to say it, they also have to be pretty damn good at project management. So, they have to have good communication skills and a good process to work with video editors, with designers, with creators, and ultimately just keeping that whole thing moving.

And finally, they also have to understand how to analyze performance data, how to take the numbers and actually turn those into insights and learnings that they can then build upon. Now, something that I want to emphasize is this is not often going to serve a brand or agency well if you're trying to do a combination role, right? You want a video editor/creative strategist, a designer/creative strategist, a media buyer/creative strategist.

And yes, all of these rules should develop more of their skill set and creative strategy. But if you are expecting someone on your team to just add a line item for creative strategy and it'll all be solved, you are so severely mistaken because this role and the responsibilities of it, even just for one brand, trust me, it is more than enough for a person to spend 40 hours a week trying to excel at. And that probably won't even be enough.

Which is why brands have really leaned in and started developing their performance creative teams internally because if this is how you're going to grow in the new era, which it is, that's where they need to invest their dollars now, not necessarily in hiring a new person to actually make the assets or hiring a new head of growth. it's actually much more likely to get better leverage and better creative from actually just hiring the creative strategist that's going to develop it.

Now, with that said, if you are a designer or a video editor and you're interested in pivoting, I've actually made some of my best creative strategy hires from people who had a background in the actual creative. But I want to emphasize that this is absolutely a different role. And knowing that distinction when you are making this pivot is crucially important. Ultimately, the best creative strategists are part psychologist, part marketer, part data analyst, and part creative director and increasingly part creator, which is why this role has so much leverage and so much opportunity for those higher salary bands.

Now, let's talk about the skill set that you need to develop to become a great creative strategist. And this is actually the things that I am looking for when I am hiring creative strategists. I've hired dozens and dozens of creative strategists in my career from the top VP level all the way down to entrylevel junior creative strategists that are just starting their career. And I got to say, whenever I kick off a hiring sprint, and I'm actually going through one right now at my agency where we're currently hiring for a creative strategy lead, I always really try to evaluate initially what motivates them.

And I try to see if there's a little spark or a little something that is kind of unnameable that is really driving them to get performance and drive revenue. Because I think that little nuance of a thing often separates the great creative strategists who never give up and are always really trying to improve their craft and get that content that really grows the dollar versus ones who are just phoning it in and writing briefs to just check off something on their list.

And beyond that, here are the other things that I'm evaluating. Number one, does this creative strategist have an understanding and an interest behind the reasons why people buy? Do they have an interest in consumer psychology? Are they able to talk about core desires and motivators? Do they have at least a baseline understanding of different awareness levels? And are they able to spot content in the wild that is really emotionally resonating?

Actually, a practice that I often like to do with my creative strategists is I will have them find content organically that represents a certain persona for a brand because I'm trying to understand, okay, do they know a good piece of organic content when they see it? Are they able to really figure out, hey, this is actually what is emotionally resonating? Even if it doesn't fit the picture perfect building blocks of a problem solution angle that YouTube and Twitter and LinkedIn have now beaten into us ad nauseium.

I try to see if they can find that secret sauce. And number two, do they have their own process for conducting research? So, do they know how to analyze customer reviews? Do they know how to search through Reddit threads and figure out the right types of insights? When they see a top performing ad, are they going straight to the ad comments and seeing, hey, is there something here that is actually propelling the performance of this ad or is there another golden nugget that we can use in future iterations of this creative?

The best creative strategists already have a research process unlock. And if you want me to show you mine in an upcoming video, let me know. And number three, they have a great understanding of hooks and concepting. So they know the great hook formulas that stopped the scroll. And they also understand how to write hooks that maybe fall outside of that or how to use visuals in audio and really that second zero experience to not only target the right individual, but target the right individual that is going to have a direct response to that ad.

And they also understand story structures and formulas that ultimately lead people to that conversion. They also understand the formats that work and are able to differentiate between formats that always work versus formats that are a little bit more trending, aka kind of present a bit more of an arbitrage opportunity like the AI ads right now or the Yapper ads, which I would actually argue to say Yapper ads are not really that much of a trend.

It's just a trend that we're talking about it. But the right creative strategists are going to be able to have that conversation with me. And the right creative strategists are also going to understand how to actually read data, how to analyze performance on creative. Again, I did a big video on this last year, but if you'd like me to go through this and create another net new video for you because a lot has changed in this world of AI and now you're able to use clawed and runth with motion to really help analyze your creative and glean even more insights. they'd be super happy to make that a video for you.

But yeah, the best creative strategists are going to be able to really comfortably talk hook rate, talk hold rate with me, talk about why click-through rate might be important on some ad creatives and why it not. And they're really able to differentiate between our primary KPIs like spend in purchases and revenue. that is always going to be their holy grail. Versus the secondary storytelling metrics like those hook and hold and clickthrough rates and whatever else you're trying to use to evaluate the performance of your creative.

There's many things, but they are really able to sit down with me and be like, "Yeah, this ad might have had a really high hook rate of 55% and a high click-through rate, but if it didn't lead to actual conversions and it's not working, they are able to have that conversation with me and also give out some reasons as to why that may be." And then finally, the best creative strategists today are also considering themselves AI specialist. you have to have fluency now in this developing technology.

This is absolutely a non-negotiable in 2026. And while I personally do not believe that AI is going to be replacing creative strategists anytime soon, and I do resent it when I see it on LinkedIn or Twitter, people who are claiming that and for UGC creators, I do not think that is the case at all. However, that does not permit you to decide that you're not going to learn this technology cuz you absolutely do or else you will be left behind.

This is why I am really really passionate right now about sharing more about what I'm doing behind the scenes to train myself in AI, how I'm using it for video generation, how I'm using it to help with brief writing, how I'm using it to help with project management and reporting. Probably the biggest thing is reporting. Now, there is no need to master all of this in one single day, but if I were you, I would be writing this down to understand, okay, these are really the core buckets that I'm going to need to train myself so that I can really become that elite creative strategist that is worthy of making 10K per month.

And I got to say, I would very easily and happily pay a creative strategist that if I felt like they could come in and drive the entire strategy without fail for brands. That is an easy thing for me to pay as someone who was managing an agency. With that said, I've seen a lot of creative strategists in my day. And if you can even master half of this, you're already ahead of the pack. But we're not going for just good in this channel.

We're going all the way. I know you can, especially if you got it to this part of the video. All right, now let's talk about the tools that brands and agencies are expecting you to know, use, love, and be fluent in if you are a creative strategist. Because I can guarantee you, majority of brands are already using these in their tech stack. And it is going to be a lot easier for them to say yes to you as a creative strategist if you can already talk the talk with these platforms.

And number one is going to be motion for creative analytics and reporting. They also just did an amazing creative strategy boot camp, an entire training for creative strategists. But Motion is a non-negotiable in this industry. And transparently, I am chief evangelist at Motion. I have had a very long relationship with that platform. But I also use it every single day in my client work. It is absolutely a non-negotiable.

And now with Renith, you are able to glean so many more insights with your creatives directly in platform. and also extract that to your LLMs that you're using. At a bare minimum, if you are even at all curious about this industry, you need to sign up for their newsletter and start attending their webinars. They are bar none the leader in the industry at providing great education to creative strategists, which is why my relationship with them has been so easy to do and something that I love continuing to do.

And number two, foreplay. little bit of a competitor to motion if I'm being honest. You know, Motion has a swipe file aspect to it, but I still honestly use foreplay. H I just like the user interface a little bit more. You can tell that's an authentic review because I am chief evangelist at Motion, but I still use foreplay and the way that I'm able to save and categorize ads that I see in the wild. I just love it. And number three, you're going to have to have your LLM of choice.

And I will say I personally think the best creative strategists use a combination of a few. So I love using Claude Co specifically for reporting and for a lot of my animations. I find that right now the actual like copy generation kind of sucks. And I've actually been getting a lot better copy and sprucing up on briefs from chat GPT or Poppy. I really love using Poppy for building mind maps and actually generating creative and content that really matches the type of vibe that a brand is trying to go after.

And the final tool that actually tells me that a creative strategist is really serious about bottomline business objectives aka revenue is particle. If they can talk to me about particle actually I had a creative strategist bring up this tool to me recently in an interview and I was like you are automatically moving to the next round because particle allows you to see actual sales data based on products and bundles and things that are actually moving the needle for brands.

And I find that creative strategists who have truly attached themselves to growing businesses, not just getting a winning ad, tend to know that platform pretty well. Now, again, you don't need to know all of these on day one. But if you can walk into an interview and demonstrate familiarity with these tools and have a little bit of experience under your belt, they're automatically going to take you way more seriously as a candidate.

So, let's talk about what brands are actually looking for, right? Because you can have the skills, you can have the tools, but there's also things that like functionally you need to say and demonstrate in the actual interview for them to even consider you. So, this is why I often hire people. Number one, if they demonstrate to me that they have a process, number one, do they have a process for conducting research? Number two, do they have a process for when hits the fan and performance tanks, do they have a process for diving into the performance data to understand what's going on?

Do they have a performance creatively for getting a brand back on track? Do they have an onboarding process for a brand? I really like to see creative strategists that are more processoriented because that shows me that they're going to be a lot more scalable as an individual versus someone who's just waiting for the right inspiration, which like that does not work. Again, this is much less of a creative role than it is a strategy role.

So, I want to see that someone has the right strategy in place or the right toolkit in place to always get to that answer that is going to result in a winning ad creative. And number two, I want to make sure that we're hiring someone who really understands that performance. So yeah, you got to do the numbers thing. It's just how it is. And number two, I really like to find people who are genuinely obsessed with the customer.

So they are pouring over those website reviews. They are looking up their customers on social media and understanding their backgrounds and what their day-to-day lives look like. It sounds a little stalkery, but the best creative strategists do that. they go deep on that customer. And the final thing is like I just don't give a about degrees. At the end of the day, I've just never actually looked at someone's college and evaluated that.

Like I don't even look at they've graduated college, where they went. Do not care. Now, some other things that you can do to make sure you are really prepared for this interview. Number one, always have a handful of brands that you can immediately refer to as people who you admire for their creative strategy. And do not say a brand like Nike or Adidas or some big brand. I can't tell you how many times like I've caught a creative strategist off guard and they're like um groomons.

I mean I guess groomons could be okay. They'll be like oh Lululemon and I'm like Lululemon like they don't do for performance marketing. Like I know that they're just not serious and they're caught off guard. So always make sure that you have a handful of brands that you're like yeah I love their creative strategy. They do excellent work. And again, do not pitch yourself as a video editor or a graphic designer who also does creative strategy.

You are a creative strategist first who maybe had some experience doing video editing or graphic design in the past, but you have made this pivot and this is what you are focusing on solely. Know your lane. And another thing too is show up having already analyzed some ads in their ad library. Get two or three things that you're like, "Hey, like I think that this could be a good opportunity for you." Maybe a specific creator, maybe a specific format, maybe a specific persona or even a hook.

I actually did this today when I was pitching a big brand on my agency services. I had a few minutes before the call. I went into their ads library and I looked at a few ads that were ranked highest in the impressions and I picked out one and I'm like they need to double and triple down on that strategy because I bet that is their actual top performer, not some of the boring statics that were actually most highly ranked.

So do that mini audit before the interview. Show that thinking before they even ask. And don't be afraid to tell them what you think they are doing wrong. I didn't interview with a creative strategist a few weeks ago and a red flag that I actually had in the interview process is I asked her about one of the clients that we were working with and I said hey what do you think we could do better? What do you think we are doing wrong with this client in regards to our creative strategy and she was like oh nothing.

And I'm like I know we're not nailing it and I want a creative strategist to be able to through their own process and lens and analysis to have a different perspective on it. I think having a different perspective as a creative strategist is a gold mine. At the end of the day, the brands who are going to pay you the most are the ones who recognize that the creative strategist they're hiring is owning the outcome, not just submitting on deliverables.

So, if you want to charge more, bring more value. Now, let's talk about how to build your portfolio from zero. And first things first, you do not need paying clients first to start. You can analyze real ads that are live right now. You can break them down. You can show your thinking. You can even publish that thinking if you're bold enough. This is actually how I got my first job at an agency. But I did it in a totally different format cuz it was so many years ago.

I would actually do blog posts breaking down the funnels of brands that I wanted to work with. And I'm not kidding. More than 75% of the time, the brand would reach out to have a conversation with me. And I know brands are still doing this. Another thing that you need to do is you need to join communities of creative strategists who are actively doing this work and also educating themselves. I often find within these communities, they are always sharing new opportunities and brands that are looking to hire passionate talent.

Motion's creative strategy boot camp is an excellent one. Another thing too is by actually developing the ads for a brand. Now, this is a little bold, right? But if you're just starting off, there is now more opportunity than ever through AI platforms, through actually just using your own iPhone to make creatives. I actually had a creative strategist recently drop me five static AI ads that they made in a handful of videos and say, "Hey, I really want to be a creative strategist for your team.

I know these are the brands that you're working on. I would love for you to test these and if it performs well, reach out. I actually immediately took an interview with them because I was so impressed by that initiative. Now, I've also seen creative strategists get their start by just making content for themselves as a creator and really pressure testing and seeing what types of hooks are going to convert and what types of visuals and how they can start conversations with people online.

I can tell you I've very often hired people who have started off as UGC creators because they understood that content landscape. But moving into creative strategy, you could also get your start working with a local business or a friend of a friend's businesses to really build those reps. I wish I could tell you, hey, you can just sit down and become an intern that pays you a little bit less than a normal creative strategist.

So, you could learn on the job, but that is not how it works, y'all. Like, people pay to go to university. You pay to get educated by the mentors that you want to have. There is a lot to be said by investing in your education so that you can build that portfolio. And that is absolutely something that I would encourage you to do. And like full transparency, yeah, I have a course, but there are several other courses that you could take for creative strategy.

And some are going to be better for you than mine because they are more interactive. There's more of a community aspect. And I think for people who are just starting off that might be just the thing that you need. But I think there is an element when you are first starting off in developing your portfolio to join as many communities as you can and really understand what type of opportunities there are there for beginners. invest in your education so that you can actually build upon the skill set and get mentors and peers that you can really learn to collaborate with and get feedback on your work with.

And then three, actually create. Put those creatives out into market. The best candidates that I talk to are the ones that put in their own reps and invest in their own education before anyone ever paid them a dime. And I'm not going to sit here and tell you that money is not important. Money is important. I wouldn't be doing this work if I wasn't getting paid, y'all. I wouldn't have done it for this many years without seeing my own revenue grow.

But for many years, I really really invested more in myself and developing my skill set so that I could reach that level. And I have just seen that so often a lot of creative strategists don't actually have the skill set that they need, but they come with a lot of entitlement to getting a certain type of salary when their results don't actually warrant that and aren't reflective of the value that they're providing to businesses.

So the people that I really want watching my channel and in my ecosystem are people who are hyper passionate about this industry really want to get their hands dirty and really know how to grow businesses and grow their revenue because that is very very empowering and only then when they have those results then they ask for their money in their paycheck. Those are the people that, by the way, I will happily pay multi6figure salaries to again and again because they are worth their weight and gold.

And once you have those results, the math to getting 10K per month is actually super simple. If I was a creative strategist, I would never charge less than $2,000 per month to do creative strategy for a brand, even if it's a small brand. So, at that point, you need five clients. And again, if I am being honest, the average creative strategist that I see who wants to work at my agency, and this is even overseas, not even the US, like minimum 4 to 5K.

And for creative strategists who are, you know, more on a leadership track, that in and of itself is going to be a minimum 8 to 10K for just a handful of clients agency side. But the best creative strategists that I know, the ones who have had several reps, have spent years at agencies, who have worked on a handful of consultancy or brand clients and you know really have done this work for five plus years. It is painfully easy for them to find work where they are charging 8 to 10k for one brand and they're able to juggle three to four brands of those per month.

So here's where you're going to find your first clients. Number one, reach out to your immediate network. I know that is intimidating and you might feel like, "No, I don't want to." No. Put up the Instagram story, put up the tweet or LinkedIn post, talk to your friends and tell them, "Hey, I'm going to be a creative strategist that makes a lot of money and I'm just getting started." Get in early. And number two, start posting on LinkedIn and Twitter.

Post your thinking. Break down and add your like. Really start building your community of peers. This is ultimately a trustbased job and no one's just going to hire anyone off the street because they claim to have results. No, I'm actually way more likely to take an interview with someone if I'm like, "Oh, yeah. I've seen them engage with my posts quite a bit. I've actually seen some of their posts. Oh, I really like that breakdown that they did at that Guns ad.

This stuff matters in 2026." Join your communities. I love the Foxwell Founders group. There also several Discord and Slack groups. That's actually where I got a number of my first gigs as a media buyer and creative strategist. There's also a number of emerging school communities like Sarah Levengers that is elite for building your skill set as a creative strategist. And there's often as a part of these communities where a ton of opportunities start flowing and you just start seeing what possibilities are out there.

But you got to contribute first and then ask. And I got to say too, the smaller agencies and smaller brands are much more likely to take someone junior on, right? Especially somewhere where you can really learn the ins and outs of this industry and be mentored by people who've been doing it a little bit longer than you. So that is the full road map. That is how you're going to be able to easily make 10K as a creative strategist per month. creative strategy and being a creative strategist is essentially the combination of having a lethal skill set.

Like if you can grow businesses through creative and through that strategy, you're always going to have a job. And this job is not going to be replaced by AI. That's just like one thing I'm just not concerned about at all. But it's also social proof, right? Like people need to trust you if you're going to be in this vital vital position. And if you can master and understand everything in this video, hell, I'll hire you.