Meta advertising, the creative half

Meta Ads Agency For Brands That Outgrew A retainer

Stop letting a retainer's creative schedule set your testing pace. Finished assets produced and launched on demand, with a strategist on the account.

First batch in days. No contract, no forced demo.

30M+ Ads Created For 30K+ Happy Customers

4.75/5 120 Countries
What arrives

What A Brief Turns Into, And How Fast

The asset types, the format coverage and the turnaround, before you talk to anyone.

INPUT

What you send us

One live Meta account, your brand assets and whatever you already know works. No audit questionnaire and no discovery deck.

OUTPUT

What comes back

Statics, motion, creator video and copy, sized for the placements your account runs, named and ready to upload.

TURNAROUND

How long it takes

Five to seven days from an agreed brief. A strategist reviews every asset against your brand before it leaves us.

Format coverage and turnaround describe typical engagements. They do not predict advertising results.

The short answer

What A Meta Ads Agency Actually Does

Agencies split into the buying craft and the creative. We run both, plus the category read that sits in front of them.

In one paragraph

A Meta ads agency plans, builds and manages paid campaigns on Facebook and Instagram. The work splits into two halves: the buying craft, which is account structure, bidding, budget and measurement, and the creative, which is the concepts, statics, video and copy that actually run.

Almost every agency sells the first half well. The second half is where the deals differ. In Credo's survey of social ads providers, a base Facebook management fee sits around $2,000 to $2,500 a month, with creative and testing included — but included “on a schedule”, and costing more “depending on the speed of testing and creative needed.”

Quickads is built the other way round. Creative intelligence, creative strategy, creative production, influencer work and campaign management sit in one place, billed per creative rather than as a share of your media budget. A strategist signs off every asset, and a brief turns into finished work in 5 to 7 days.

Retainer figures are Credo's published survey, not our data. We sell a competing service, so treat our reading as interested and check the sources yourself.

The retainer model

What Meta Ads Retainers Really Cost

Credo puts a base Meta management fee at $2,000 to $2,500 a month, with a share of spend on top above $10,000. We bill per creative instead.

Quickads figures in the first data column are ours; retainer figures are Credo's, and where Credo publishes no turnaround figure the cell says so.
What you are buyingQuickadsA Meta ads retainer
Base monthly feeBilled per creative, never against your media budgetAround $2,000 to $2,500 a month
A share of your ad spendNone10 to 15 per cent above $10,000 a month
Onboarding feeNoneAround $2,000
Minimum termNo annual prepay, no lock-in30.49 per cent require 6 to 12 months; 23.93 per cent require none
Creative cadenceSet per brief, by youIncluded “on a schedule”, set by the agency
Cost of moving fasterThe unit does not change with the speedMore, “depending on the speed of testing and creative needed”
Turnaround on a brief5 to 7 daysNot published
What the fee grows withConcepts and formats you ask forChannels managed and media spend
The metered part

Where A Retainer's Creative Cadence Caps You

Every line in a retainer's price moves with something. None of them moves with the number of concepts you want to run.

Attached to spend

A cut above ten thousand

Once monthly media passes $10,000, Credo's model adds 10 to 15 per cent of spend on top of the base fee.

Credo, Digital Marketing Industry Pricing Survey, Facebook chapter

Attached to channels

Priced by the channel

Credo's PPC model charges $1,000 to $2,000 a month for one channel, then $500 to $750 extra for each additional one.

Credo, Digital Marketing Industry Pricing Survey, PPC chapter

Attached to setup

Copy, once, at the start

The setup fee is scoped as “research, auditing, initial ad copy.” There is no ongoing production line in the model.

Credo, Digital Marketing Industry Pricing Survey, PPC chapter

Attached to speed

Faster is the upgrade

Creative and testing are in the base fee, but cost more “depending on the speed of testing and creative needed.”

Credo, Digital Marketing Industry Pricing Survey, Facebook chapter

One Meta account, under Credo's model

  1. Base management fee, a month $2,000–$2,500
  2. Onboarding, once Around $2,000
  3. Of media spend above $10,000 a month 10–15%
  4. Who sets the creative cadence Theirs

Nothing in that structure gets larger when you need more concepts. It gets larger when you add a channel or raise a budget. The cadence is the product, and it is not yours to set.

Figures in the panel are Credo's, not ours; the grouping is our reading of its published model.

Formats

Performance Creative Formats Built For Meta Placements

Statics, creator video, motion and placement resizes, produced from one brief for the placements your account actually runs.

Static hook variations

One offer, many openings — problem-first, proof-first, price-first, objection-first. Same product, different entry point.

Creator and UGC video

Creators sourced and directed to a brief, so the creator format sits in the same test as the studio format instead of arriving from a separate vendor.

Motion and 3D

Product motion, feature callouts and animated typography for feeds where a static stops earning attention.

Placement resizes and versioning

Feed, Reels, Stories and right-hand column, cut properly rather than letterboxed, with safe areas respected.

On your Meta account

How Quickads Runs Your Meta Campaigns

The five links, described plainly, with the part each one plays on a Facebook and Instagram account.

Creative intelligence

Computer-vision models trained on more than 32 million ads read what is running in your category — formats, hooks, pacing, on-screen text density — so a brief starts from evidence rather than from a blank page.

Creative strategy

A strategist turns that read into angles worth testing and decides the format mix. This is the part that is a person, not a model, and it is the reason we do not describe ourselves as a tool.

Creative production

Statics, motion, video and copy produced across the placements Meta actually serves, on a 5 to 7 day turnaround from brief to finished assets. Concepts per week and assets per month are scoped to the engagement rather than sold as a fixed allowance.

Influencer at scale

Creator-led video sourced and produced as part of the same brief, so the creator format sits in the same test as the studio format instead of arriving from a separate vendor two weeks later.

Campaign management

If you want the account run as well as fed, we run it — structure, budgets, launch and iteration. If you have media buyers you like, we hand them finished assets and stay out of the account.

How it is billed

Per creative, never as a share of your media budget. No annual prepay and no lock-in, so the commitment is a project rather than a year.

Where an agency wins

Full-Service Agency Or Quickads: The Honest Split

If you are choosing between the two, these are the reasons to pick the agency. Three come from the same survey we quote against it.

Genuine agency strengths
  • It is cheaper than the in-house hire at mid spend. By Credo's own arithmetic, at $15,000 a month in media the agency route works out around $38,000 a year, against an average United States Facebook ads manager salary of $61,513.Credo, citing Indeed salary data
  • Buying and bidding are a separate craft. Credo describes Facebook advertising as requiring bidding strategy and copywriting, and separately a strong creative department — two different disciplines, and the buying one is what a retainer is built around.Credo, Facebook chapter
  • One retainer covers several channels. Credo's per-channel adder of $500 to $750 a month is an acknowledgement that agencies run search, social and more under a single agreement.Credo, PPC chapter
  • Landing pages, CRO and attribution setup. Full-service scope reaches past the ad into the page and the measurement behind it. That work sits outside a creative production remit, including ours.
Where it gets metered
  • Creative is included on their schedule. Not excluded — scheduled. Volume and speed are the paid upgrade, in the survey's own words.Credo, Facebook chapter
  • The fee never tracks concepts. It tracks channels managed and media spent, so wanting more angles is a renegotiation rather than a request.Credo, PPC chapter
  • Copy is scoped once, at setup. Credo's setup fee covers “research, auditing, initial ad copy” and the model carries no ongoing production line after it.Credo, PPC chapter
  • The modal deal has a minimum term. 30.49 per cent of social ads providers require 6 to 12 months, though 23.93 per cent require no minimum at all.Credo, Facebook chapter
One chain, five links

One Connected Chain, Five Execution Links

Analytics tools read the auction. Design subscriptions make assets. Media agencies buy placements. The handoffs between them are where weeks go.

CreativeintelligenceCreativestrategyCreativeproductionInfluencerat scaleCampaignmanagementA TYPICAL PAID-SOCIAL RETAINERPartlyPartlyMeteredNoYesQUICKADSYesYesYesYesYesRetainer coverage is our reading of Credo's published model of a Facebook engagement. Illustrative, not a quote.

Meta's own retrieval system selects “from tens of millions of ad candidates into a few thousand relevant ad candidates.” That describes Meta's infrastructure rather than promising what more creative will do for any account.

See What A Meta Brief Turns Into

Bring one live Facebook or Instagram account. We will come back with a read of your category and a first batch, before any commitment.

Switching

Moving Across From Your Current Agency

Nothing needs cancelling first. We read the account, plug in, and deliver a first batch in five to seven days.

01 · READ

The account as it stands

We look at what has run, what is running and where the creative has stalled. No access to your billing is needed for this.

02 · PLUG IN

Into the account you own

You keep the ad account and the pixel history. We work inside it, or hand you assets to upload, whichever you prefer.

03 · SHIP

First batch in five to seven days

The first brief goes into production straight away, so the switch is not a month of onboarding.

How an engagement runs

From Strategy Brief To Live Ad Account

From category read to assets in your ad account, with who decides what at each step.

01 · READ

Your category, first

We pull what is live in your category from the ads index and bring a strategist's read of it to the first call, before you have committed to anything.

02 · BRIEF

Angles, then formats

You pick the angles worth testing. We scope the format mix against the placements your account actually runs, and agree the batch.

03 · PRODUCE

Five to seven days

Statics, motion, video and copy come back as finished, named, correctly sized assets. A strategist reviews every one against your brand before it leaves.

04 · RUN

Into the account

We launch and iterate, or hand the batch to your media buyers. Either way the next brief starts from what the first one taught us.

The fit question

Who Quickads Suits, And Who Should Hire An Agency

Work out whether your bottleneck is creative throughput or full-funnel technical setup before you choose a partner.

Pick us
  • YesYour media buyers are good and they are waiting on assets, not on ideas.
  • YesYou want to set the creative cadence yourself rather than inherit one.
  • YesYou need video, motion and creator formats from the same brief.
  • YesYou would rather not sign a year, and would rather not pay a percentage of media.
Hire the agency
  • NoThe constraint is account structure or bidding, and the creative is fine.
  • NoYou need search, shopping and programmatic bought under one agreement.
  • NoThe real problem is the landing page or the attribution setup.
  • PartlyYou want one agency of record accountable for the whole funnel.
Line by line

Quickads Side By Side With Meta Retainers

A feature-by-feature read of a retainer model against per-creative production with campaign management.

Marks in the Quickads column are ours; marks in the retainer column are our reading of Credo's published model and of what full-service scope commonly covers.
RequirementQuickadsA Meta ads retainer
Finished ad creative you can shipYesPartly
Creative cadence you setYesNo
Creative intelligence from an ads indexYesNo
Influencer and creator video in the same briefYesNo
A strategist named on the accountYesPartly
Cost that does not track your media budgetYesNo
Campaign management on MetaYesYes
Search, shopping and programmatic under one agreementNoYes
Landing pages, CRO and attribution setupNoYes

The last two rows go against us, and the row above them is a tie.

Meta ads agency FAQ

Meta Advertising Questions Buyers Frequently Ask

Direct answers on pricing structure, turnaround, contract terms and campaign management options.

What does a Meta ads agency do?

It plans, builds and manages your paid campaigns on Facebook and Instagram. The scope splits into the buying craft — account structure, bidding, budgets, measurement — and the creative that runs inside it. Agencies vary far more on the second half than the first.

How much does a Meta ads agency cost?

In Credo's survey of social ads providers, a base Facebook management fee runs around $2,000 to $2,500 a month, plus roughly 10 to 15 per cent of media spend above $10,000 a month and an onboarding fee of about $2,000. Quickads bills per creative instead, never as a share of your media budget, and the number depends on format mix and volume, so we quote it on a call rather than publish a rate.

Is ad creative included in a Meta ads retainer?

Usually yes, but on the agency's schedule. Credo describes creative and testing as included in the base Facebook fee, then adds that it costs more depending on the speed of testing and creative needed. So the accurate way to think about it is metered rather than excluded — you get a cadence, and moving faster than that cadence is the upgrade.

Does Quickads run the campaigns or only make the creative?

Either, and you choose. Campaign management is part of what we do, so we can run the account end to end. If you already have media buyers you trust, we stay out of the account and hand them finished, correctly sized assets instead.

How fast does a first batch of Meta creative arrive?

Five to seven days from an agreed brief to finished assets. That covers statics, motion, video and copy across the placements your account runs. A strategist reviews every asset against your brand before it leaves us.

Do I have to sign an annual contract?

No. There is no annual prepay and no lock-in, and the first batch comes before any commitment. For context on the market, Credo found 30.49 per cent of social ads providers require a 6 to 12 month minimum, while 23.93 per cent require no minimum term at all.

Should I hire a Meta ads agency or an in-house media buyer?

At mid spend levels the agency is usually the cheaper route, and that is not our claim. It is Credo's. Its arithmetic puts an agency at roughly $38,000 a year against an average United States Facebook ads manager salary of $61,513, at $15,000 a month in media. The separate question is who makes the creative, which neither of those options answers by itself.

How is this different from a creative subscription?

The difference is where the work starts: a subscription sells you production capacity and leaves the thinking to you. We start a link earlier, with a read of what is running in your category, and a strategist who decides which angles are worth producing. Influencer video and campaign management sit in the same engagement rather than with two more vendors.

Before you sign a retainer

See The Creative First, Then Choose A Partner

Give us one live Meta account. You get a read of your category and a first batch, with no contract attached to it.