SelfMade vs an in-house creative team
Should I hire an in-house creative team or use SelfMade?
It depends on what you need. An in-house team is a kitchen sink: email, site, Amazon, retail, and Meta ads when there's time left. Hire one if you need all of that, or if you spend under $30K a month on Meta. Use SelfMade if Meta ads are the bottleneck. We do one job: find the audiences your account has never reached and stack them like a layer cake. 32 to 180 net-new ads a month for $6,000 to $20,000, first delivery in 5 days, month-to-month.
What is SelfMade's 60/20/20 layer cake?
Every ad is an equation: persona, angle, format. We change one variable at a time, so we always know what moved CPA.
60% Iterations
Same persona, same format, new angle. We push deeper into audiences that already buy until they fatigue.
20% Reskins
Same persona, same angle, new format. More life from a proven winner. Shorter shelf life, faster payback.
20% Net-new ICPs
Audiences your account has never run. This is where accounts scale.
How we find new ICPs: We pull every ad you've ever run through the Meta API and tag it by persona, angle, emotion and format. That shows exactly who you've never talked to. Then we scrape Reddit, TikTok and Google Trends for the people describing your problem in their own words.
Why a layer cake: Each new ICP reaches different people in the auction. It doesn't pile frequency onto the audiences already working, so every layer adds spend on top of the last.
| Factor | SelfMade | In-house team |
|---|---|---|
| Cost | $6,000 to $20,000 a month by tier ($111 to $188 per ad). Custom above $200K spend. | Typical estimate: $25,000 to $40,000 a month, fully loaded, for a designer, a video editor and a creative strategist. |
| Speed | First delivery 5 days after kickoff. Full weekly cadence by end of week two. | Typical estimate: 2 to 3 months to hire and ramp. |
| Volume | 32 to 180 net-new ads a month, by tier. | Whatever's left after email, site, Amazon and retail. |
| Creative mix | 60/20/20 layer cake: iterations, reskins, net-new ICPs. | Kitchen sink. Meta ads compete with every other request. |
| New audiences | Found by tagging every ad you've run, then scraping Reddit, TikTok and Google Trends. | Depends on the time left over. |
| Testing approach | Every ad tagged by persona, angle and emotion, judged only after a fair test. 25 to 45% hit rate, depending on ad type. | Depends on who you hire. |
| Commitment | Month-to-month. You own every asset. | Salaries, benefits, and the cost of replacing anyone who leaves. |
See if we're a fit.
30 minutes. We'll tell you if in-house is the better call.
Comparing agencies instead? SelfMade vs a traditional creative agency →
