Build a scalable creative engine — not just a campaign
Ocean Finance, one of the UK's leading personal finance brands, had a clear goal: generate high-quality leads on TikTok at a cost that made media investment defensible. The challenge wasn't reach — it was conversion efficiency.
Rather than optimising a single campaign, Ocean Finance partnered with Shook to design a Test & Learn programme built on a structured hypothesis framework. Each cycle would isolate one variable — creative concept, hook message, or creator profile — and use the data to directly brief the next.
The ambition was to move from guessing what works to knowing what works, and to build a growing library of insight that compounds over time.
Three cycles. One question each time.
The programme was structured so that every cycle answered a specific hypothesis before passing its findings to the next. No assumptions were carried forward unchallenged.
Concept test: Life Hacks vs Pain Points
16 assets across male and female creators, testing eight hooks built around financial pain points — no credit card, no credit history, difficulty getting approved. The aim was to understand whether emotional problem-framing could drive conversions. It revealed a $53.31 blended CPA, but critically surfaced one standout: Female Hook 2 ($7.98 CPA, 425 conversions) using a lead-gen objective — pointing directly to what to test next.
Concept pivot: Testimonial over Life Hacks
Acting on Cycle 2 learnings, the creative concept shifted entirely. Out went the high-energy Life Hacks format; in came a quieter, more direct testimonial style — a creator speaking plainly about Ocean Finance's product benefits. Eight hooks now led with USPs: eligibility in 60 seconds, contactless payments up to £100, credit limits between £200–£8,000. The result was a $8.33 blended CPA — a 84% improvement — with Hooks 5 and 7 alone accounting for 87% of all 8,958 conversions.
Creator and message refinement: two female creators, proven hooks
With the concept validated, the variable shifted to creator profile. Two female creators from different age groups (20s and 30s) were set against the same eight hooks — now chosen from the strongest performers in Cycle 1. Within nine days, the programme delivered a $6.82 blended CPA, 1,390 conversions, and a 27.5% average conversion rate. Crucially, both creators performed at near-identical CPAs, confirming that the message, not the creator age group, is the key differentiator.
The structure meant that nothing was wasted. Even Cycle 2's high CPA was data — it eliminated an entire creative direction and freed budget to be deployed more precisely in the cycles that followed.
What the data says
Across three cycles, the programme generated 11,423 conversions from £141,429 in spend — but the headline number isn't the story. The story is the trajectory.
CPA improvement C2 → C1
Moving from Life Hacks to Testimonial format cut the cost per acquisition from $53.31 to $8.33 — the single biggest performance lever in the programme.
Cycle 3 CPA — after 9 days
An early read still improving as the TikTok algorithm optimises. Already below the Cycle 1 blended CPA and with 27.5% average CVR across creatives.
Conversions from Cycle 1 alone
Of which 87% came from just two hooks — Male Hook 7 and Female/Male Hook 5 — both centred on specific product benefits rather than pain points.
Highest single-creative CVR
Creator 30s × Hook 8 (credit limit variant) in Cycle 3 — the strongest signal yet that age-specific messaging can unlock even lower CPAs in future cycles.
The hook-level data from Cycle 3 also produced the programme's clearest creative kill: Hook 7, testing Ocean Finance's "Instant card access" feature, returned zero conversions across both creators. That finding — worth as much as any winner — will directly shape the briefs for Tests 3 and 4.
Cycle 3 hook performance at a glance
| Hook | Message | Conversions | CPA | Verdict |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Hook 1 | Eligibility check in 60 seconds | 360 | $5.82 | Winner |
| Hook 8 | Credit limit £200–£8,000 (variant) | 183 | $5.84 | Winner |
| Hook 4 | Credit limit £200–£8,000 | 690 | $7.08 | Scale |
| Hook 3 | No way to prove financial responsibility | 87 | $7.54 | Test more |
| Hook 5 | Contactless payments up to £100 | 48 | $11.11 | Pause |
| Hook 2 | No access to card-only spaces | 15 | $10.02 | Pause |
| Hook 7 | New feature: Instant card access | 0 | — | Kill |
The learning loop: Tests 3 & 4
The programme's design means Cycle 3's Tests 1 and 2 feed directly into Tests 3 and 4 — each creator getting a new brief built from their own performance data.
Hook 1 ($5.67) and Hook 4 ($7.17) are her strongest. Hook 5 underperforms vs Cycle 1. Hook 7 is zero.
Scale Hooks 1 & 4 with visually enhanced executions. Drop Hooks 5 & 7 entirely.
Hook 8 ($5.77, 37.7% CVR) and Hook 3 ($7.29) are uniquely strong. Financial responsibility messaging resonates with older audiences.
Scale Hooks 8 & 4. Keep Hook 3 as a differentiated angle. Drop Hooks 5, 6 & 7.
The most significant finding from Cycle 3 is also the most actionable: Hook 3 performs almost exclusively with the older creator. "No way to prove financial responsibility" drove 84 conversions at $7.29 CPA for Creator 30s — versus just 3 conversions for Creator 20s. That kind of audience-message specificity is only visible when creators and hooks are tested in parallel at scale.
"The Test & Learn programme didn't just improve our CPA — it gave us something more valuable: a repeatable process for understanding what Ocean Finance's audience actually wants to hear, and from whom."