Make the mechanism the creative platform, not a product feature. If the format addresses a problem with conventional pills and powders — absorption, convenience or the suspicion that a previous purchase did nothing — the ad's job is to make that mechanism believable. The segment determines which part leads.
Step 1 — position before you write. Josh's posts say a differentiated product comes before media buying, and that the differentiated brands cited succeeded on their proposition first. Use the first working session to test whether the format is genuinely new to the market or only new to the brand. If it is only new to the brand, reposition before buying anything.
Step 2 — map segments from the purchase event backwards. Pick two or three distinct buyers and, for each, identify the pain, fear, aspiration or motivator that triggers the purchase. Keep asking why until the answer stops being a category cliché. For a strip format, likely segments include switchers who already spend on supplements and doubt they work, sceptics who need the mechanism explained, and routine-builders who want something they will actually keep taking. Give each a different lead claim, not a different hook on the same script.
Step 3 — assign a framework to each segment rather than a template. For switchers, use loss aversion: the money already spent on supplements that were never absorbed. For sceptics, use second-order thinking: show, rather than assert, what has to be true for absorption to matter. For routine-builders, use scarcity and urgency in a starter trial. Naming the framework gives each concept a testable reason for existing, so a loss makes the strategy smarter rather than simply spending budget.
Step 4 — build a concept ladder, not a variant pile. Develop one strong concept per segment, then variants within it. Josh's posts call replicating the category leader's best-performing ad table stakes, so do not let the ads library set the starting idea.
Step 5 — measure so learnings compound. Every test carries a hypothesis, success criteria, a measurement framework and next steps, matching the agency's description of its experimentation culture. Connect spend and creative data early enough for non-specialists to read performance signals without waiting for a monthly report — the practical benefit the agency claims for its LLM-to-BigQuery setup and forecasting tool. At week four, deliver not just a CPA number but a written account of what the market taught you and what changes next.
Step 6 — put the compliance checkpoint on the calendar early. For creative aimed at European markets, generative-AI use and the Article 50 rules are a live operational question in Josh's posts, and the agency has assigned a named specialist to it. The article body is not included, so ask how compliance is checked in production, who reviews it and who signs off.
Step 7 — ask the questions that decide whether to sign. Ask them to walk through The Profitable Growth Blueprint on a real client and show one test with its hypothesis, success criteria and measured outcome, so you can check the method against actual work. Ask for pricing and terms. If you want to see how they explain platform change to a room, ask for a recording or notes from the Meta Ads talk; the announcement alone shows positioning, not substance. Treat the eight-figure client results as claims from the agency's own posts until you see the numbers behind them.
This angle can fail if the product is not genuinely differentiated or the brand cannot wait through a testing cycle instead of judging on week-one acquisition cost. If either is true, the poor-fit case applies instead.