The problem
A men's health DTC platform was acquiring at scale through paid, but the prescription flow had been re-briefed by clinical without the creative catching up. CAC had been climbing for two quarters and the in-house team was rotating creative weekly to chase platform approvals.
The constraint
Men's health DTC creative is gated three ways — TGA s.42DLB, Google's restricted-vertical review, Meta's healthcare ad policy. Most agencies rotate creative weekly chasing platform approvals. Rebuilding from the prescriber side reduced eleven live ad variants to three compliance-cleared evergreens, dropped CAC 34%, and cut rotation cadence to monthly. Platform policy was the constraint; the regulator was the floor.
The approach
We rebuilt the creative system from the prescriber side, then rationalised eleven live ad variants down to three compliance-cleared evergreens. Each claim was logged against the code; each image was policy-reviewed before placement. The funnel was re-shaped around the new clinical brief, not patched to it.
The outcome
CAC down 34% across the next three reporting cycles. The three evergreen creatives now carry 80% of media spend on the account, and the system has absorbed one TGA Code revision without copy changes. Creative rotation cadence dropped from weekly to monthly.