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TL;DR
Steven Cravotta runs his content engine live: market research → launch Posted deals + contests → analyze organic winners → scale on paid ads. Punchline: views ≠ value — his best-converting paid creative came from a contest entry that finished last with 2,000 views, and the final TikTok ads hit an 85¢ CPI.
The live walkthrough
- Market research — TikTok keyword search + TikTok/Meta Ads Libraries (sort ads by unique-users-seen; active ads = profitable). (app-market-research.)
- Posted deals (zero risk, $0 upfront) — creators submit + bid, you watch before paying, then own the video + Spark Ads code for life. Negotiate bids down (Eric Tyler 2M followers: $400 → $150).
- Posted contests ($3,000 prize pool, 26 winners by views) — creators compete; you own all winning content. One contest: 97 submissions, 234k views, $13 CPM.
- Views don’t equal conversions — “Meera and Jojo” got 2k views (last place) but became the best-converting ad. Stop overpaying big creators; 95% of creators get no deal flow while the top 5% charge insane prices. Contests surface hidden winners.
- Scale on paid (with Mark, his ad buyer who scaled Puff Count $3k→$40k): Spark Ads via TikTok Smart+ app-promotion, iOS14 dedicated campaign, ~5 creatives/campaign, $300/day for ~3 days, optimize for installs, let it run before cutting (CPI dropped $1.20 → 85¢ as the algorithm learned). Pull top winners into one campaign and scale; then re-run contests to find the next winner.
Related
- creator-content-engine — Posted deals/contests in depth
- app-market-research · paid-ads-scaling · steven-cravotta