There’s a very specific kind of tension I’ve seen unfold again and again — especially when sitting in on performance reviews with media buyers and creative leads. A campaign that was crushing it last week starts to falter. Not nosedive — just stumble a little. CTR dips. CPA edges upward. The spark that made it a winner? Feels like it might be fading.
And then the question hits the room:
“Do we kill the ad… or let it ride?”
It’s one of the hardest decisions in performance marketing. And not just because the metrics get fuzzy — but because there’s no clean answer. I’ve watched teams pull ads too early and miss the chance to scale. I’ve also seen them hold on too long, letting underperforming creatives quietly drain budget.
It reminded me of a line from the Kenny Rogers song:
“… you’ve got to know when to hold ’em, know when to fold ’em.”
And honestly, that’s exactly what this is about.
So I started digging. I asked the folks I work with — performance marketers, media buyers, creative strategists — how they decide when it’s time to walk away from a creative, and when it’s worth riding out the rough patch. Their answers weren’t tied to a single metric. What kept coming up, over and over, was context: trends, audience behavior, creative fatigue, and competitive shifts.
This piece is a blend of what I learned from them, what I’ve seen work in practice, and how tools like Prism have added another layer to the process — not by replacing instinct, but by sharpening it with real creative intelligence.
The Manual Method: What I Learned From Performance Teams
If you’re making the decision manually (and let’s be real, a lot of us are), here’s the process that emerged from those conversations — and the one I’ve seen work consistently.
Step 1: Watch the Numbers — But Don’t Panic at the First Dip
It always starts with performance data. Teams track CTR, CPA, ROAS against expected benchmarks. If performance drops outside the norm for a few days, it gets flagged.
But nobody’s pulling an ad after a single bad day. The smart ones look for patterns. A three-day dip? Time to watch it more closely. Five days? Might be something deeper.
What stood out to me was how many teams stressed the importance of setting those benchmarks before launch. Without a baseline, every fluctuation feels like a crisis.
Step 2: Look for Early Fatigue
This came up in almost every conversation: fatigue is what quietly kills great creatives.
Everyone had their own version of tracking it — rising frequency, declining engagement, reduced saves and shares, or a sudden plateau in conversion. But there was no single metric. Just instincts, spreadsheets, and experience.
And because there’s no fatigue “score” in most ad platforms, it’s something you have to read between the lines.
Step 3: Tweak It Before You Kill It
Rarely does a creative get cut cold. Most teams try a few variations first.
Usually that means duplicating the ad, changing a single element (the hook, the CTA, the visual), and watching how it performs over a couple of days. If the numbers recover, great. If not — it might be time to retire it.
But even when it works, no one’s completely sure why. Was it the edit? Or did the audience just need a reset? It's rarely black and white.
Step 4: Make the Call (With or Without Certainty)
Eventually, the conversation always ends at a decision point: kill, scale down, or hold.
Some teams use rules like:
“Pause if CPA is 25% above goal for 3 consecutive days.”
But even with rules, there’s always some guesswork involved — especially without any visibility into what competitors are doing or how trends are shifting.
The best teams I spoke to? They’ve learned to make peace with the grey area — but are constantly trying to reduce it.
What Prism Adds to the Mix
After speaking with performance marketers and observing how they evaluate ad performance manually, it became clear that their decision-making often depends on data they own — CTR, CPA, conversions, frequency — all of which live inside their ad platforms.
But creative decisions don't always have to rely only on performance metrics. In fact, a lot of them benefit from having external creative context — a view into what the rest of the industry is doing, and how creative strategies are shifting in real time.
That’s where Prism fits in.
It’s not a performance monitoring tool. It doesn’t analyze engagement or conversions. What it does — and does well — is give teams a competitive creative intelligence layer that they often don’t have time to build manually.
Here’s exactly what Prism adds to the process:
1. Creative Trend Analysis
Prism allows teams to track creative trends across their competitive landscape. You can see:
- What kinds of visuals (product close-ups, UGC, lifestyle) are most commonly used
- How messaging styles evolve over time — from feature-led to benefit-driven, emotional to transactional
- Shifts in ad format preferences (carousel vs. single image, video vs. static)
Instead of making creative decisions in a vacuum, teams can anchor their strategy in live market context.
2. Historical Campaign Evolution
Prism also makes it easy to trace how a campaign has evolved over time — not just what’s live now, but what came before it.
You can follow a brand’s creative journey:
- How a concept was introduced
- How it was modified or refined
- What creative elements were dropped, reused, or consistently kept
This gives creative teams a reference point — a way to learn from how other brands iterate, rather than reinventing from scratch every time.
3. Competitive Launch Monitoring
With Prism, you can see exactly when competitors launch new creatives — and how frequently they refresh their messaging. This gives you:
- An understanding of how aggressive (or conservative) their testing cycles are
- A sense of whether your own creative refresh cadence is on par with the market
- Early visibility into new value propositions or themes entering your category
It’s a way to stay ahead of trends — not just respond to them.
4. Creative Pattern Recognition
By tracking recurring themes, formats, and messaging strategies across brands, Prism helps identify which creative approaches are being leaned on most heavily.
For example:
- Are multiple brands leaning into testimonial-style content?
- Are certain color schemes or copywriting patterns dominating the space?
- Is there a recurring structure — like opening with a problem, then solving it with the product?
This kind of creative intelligence doesn’t tell you what’s performing — but it does tell you what’s being invested in. That’s often a strong signal of what’s resonating — or at least what your audience is being repeatedly exposed to.
Why This Layer Matters
The decision to pause or scale a creative doesn’t happen in isolation. Even without direct performance data, seeing how your competitors are behaving creatively can validate your instincts — or challenge them.
If a creative starts feeling stale internally, but you see similar messaging still running across multiple brands, maybe it’s worth revisiting instead of retiring. On the other hand, if you see the entire category shifting tone, language, or visuals, that might be your signal to rotate sooner.
Prism doesn’t tell you how your ads are performing. What it does is give you a clear, competitive creative context so your decisions aren’t made in a silo.
Curious what your competitors are rotating, retiring, or scaling right now?
See Prism in action, and get creative clarity before your next pause or push.