Shaped Daffy's Paid TikTok Creator Strategy to Identify Daffy's Highest-Converting Creative
The project
Daffy wanted to test paid creator content on TikTok as a new acquisition channel. Working closely with Daffy’s VP of Marketing and creator agency Mammoth, I ran a $25K multi-round paid acquisition experiment spanning six creators and 27 videos to identify which creator profiles, messages, formats, and hooks were most effective at driving installs.
Creators Included
The strategy
Our creative explored two primary categories drawn from member research: Daffy’s mission of building a habit of generosity and the financial benefits of tax-smart giving.
As results came in, I used the data to refine the creative for the next round, cutting weaker concepts, changing creators, tightening hooks, and doubling down on the messages and formats showing the strongest conversion signals.
The execution
- 1
Turn member research into briefs. In my role running Daffy's voice-of-customer function, I conducted 330+ member interviews to identify real tensions around giving, taxes, and personal finance. I then translated those insights into hooks and creator concepts about tax deductions, donating stock, and falling out of the habit of giving.
- 2
Build each round around what we wanted to test. Each round paired three creators with three concepts each. Mammoth sourced talent against the creator profiles we wanted to explore, while I worked with Daffy’s VP of Marketing to review creators and define the mix of messages, formats, and audience problems we wanted to test.
- 3
Develop, launch, and amplify the creative. Mammoth managed creator production while I reviewed concepts, scripts, and drafts on the Daffy side, using up to two rounds of feedback to sharpen hooks and clarify the payoff. Videos were posted organically first, then amplified with paid media to measure engagement and installs.
- 4
Use performance to shape the next round. We reviewed results to decide which creators, topics, and formats to keep, change, or cut. Early rounds showed that financially credible creators, skit-style formats, and concise tax-savings messages were strongest at driving action, so later briefs leaned further into financial utility while continuing to test mission-led generosity content.
Selected work
“Time to pay taxes” — Imran Mumtaz (@the.finance.engineer)
I worked with creator Imran Mumtaz and Mammoth to shape this skit around a simple, broadly useful tax-savings hook. It became the project’s highest-converting creative and gave us the clearest pattern to scale: a financially credible creator, a native skit format, and an immediate audience benefit.
“How to pay less in taxes” — Imran Mumtaz (@the.finance.engineer)
We developed this as another variation on the same tax-savings angle to see whether the first result would hold. It became the second-highest-converting creative, reinforcing both the message and Imran's credibility as someone worth scaling.
“Has this ever happened to you?” — Imran Mumtaz (@the.finance.engineer)
For a later round, I wanted to test whether the language from our member research could work as creator-led content. This concept came directly from interviews about falling out of the habit of giving, which I translated into a brief and developed with Mammoth and Imran.
Mission-led giving — Will Scheren (@willscheren)
One of our earlier mission-led concepts, this video with creator Will Scheren focused on Daffy’s broader goal of helping people become more generous rather than a financial benefit. It earned the project’s broadest organic reach and gave us an important contrast to the tax-focused creative that converted better.
Giving season — Courtney Johnson (@courtney..johnson)
In a later round, I developed this giving-season concept with creator Courtney Johnson to keep testing the generosity theme through a more culturally native TikTok format, rather than making the content feel like traditional nonprofit advertising.
The results
Identified Daffy’s highest-converting creative formula: credible finance creators, skit-style formats, and concise tax-savings messaging. This gave future paid acquisition a proven foundation to scale across Meta and Google.