Inside Our Meta Award Winning Paid Social Campaign

A behind the scenes look at how we approached paid social strategy and creative to earn a Meta Agency Award and an AdWeek feature.

When we build paid social campaigns, we are always thinking about how creative and performance work together in real feeds, not in isolation. That mindset guided our approach to Heretic Parfum’s Nosferatu campaign and ultimately led to being recognized with a 2025 Meta Agency Award for Best Performance Campaign of the Year - Boutique Agency, along with a feature in AdWeek.

This campaign stood out because we did not treat paid social as a distribution channel alone. We treated it as a storytelling environment shaped by how people scroll, listen, and engage.

Here is how we approached it.

Designing Creative for How People Scroll

From the start, we wanted the creative to feel immersive. We blended Heretic Parfum’s original brand assets with film footage from Nosferatu to introduce Nosferatu Eau de Macabre, a limited edition fragrance. We layered in soundtrack elements from the movie and jolt inducing sound effects designed to stop viewers mid scroll.

We leaned into black and white creative to pay homage to the original Nosferatu film, creating a visual language that felt nostalgic, haunting, and unmistakably tied to the story. This allowed the fragrance to feel essential to the film’s atmosphere rather than simply adjacent to it.

Building the Paid Social Strategy

To support the creative, we built and launched a Meta Advantage+ sales campaign designed to reach both high intent shoppers and new audiences across Meta apps.

This structure allowed us to scale efficiently while letting the creative lead performance. By delivering a mix of photo and video ads, including creator led formats, we ensured the campaign felt native across placements while remaining optimized for discovery and conversion.

Our approach focused on merging cinematic storytelling with sensory engagement so the ads stood out visually while still working within Meta’s performance driven ecosystem.

Letting Performance Guide the Momentum

As the campaign launched, we closely monitored performance signals and adapted creative and delivery accordingly. Rather than chasing a single winning ad, we focused on building momentum through testing, learning, and scaling what resonated.

The creative strategy connected with audiences and proved to be a turning point for the campaign. Sales and revenue accelerated, and return on ad spend reached new highs. While results vary by advertiser, this work reinforced what happens when creative and performance strategy are built together from the start.

This campaign is a reflection of how we approach paid social at Milked Media. We focus on building work that feels thoughtful, intentional, and true to how people actually experience ads in their feeds.

We are honored to be recognized by Meta and featured by AdWeek, and grateful to bring this approach to life through our work with brands we admire.

Let’s build ads that perform.
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