Media Buying Strategies for E-Commerce: A Chat with Fer Rivero

When you sit down with someone like Fer Rivero, you know you’re in for a wild ride. This guy has spent over a decade in digital marketing. A true nomad, jumping from Spain to the UK, Asia, Portugal, Germany, and now Switzerland. 

He’s worked with massive brands like Loop Earplugs, Benuta, and Free Soul, managing ad budgets that range from €10,000 to €100,000 per day. And he does it all with an approach that involves science, art, and creativity.

Aaron (our Account Executive Manager) and I had the chance to pick Fer’s brain, and let’s just say it did not disappoint. If you want to know what's important when testing creatives, how to know your audience, and what performs better: Meta or Google Ads, buckle up!

Creativity Over Everything

We started our conversation by asking him about the best approaches and strategies for successful Media Buying. If there’s one thing Fer emphasized, it’s that creativity is everything.

Many brands obsess over account structures, bidding strategies, and optimization hacks. But according to Fer, if your creatives suck, none of that matters.

‍“80% of your campaign’s success is creative. The exact image or video that you see is the most powerful thing.”

Fer’s mantra? Hook first, optimize later.

Headlines Are King

He mentioned that not only creatives but also copy plays a major role in winning ads: 

“I see brands dumping paragraphs of ad copy to explain their entire universe. Meanwhile, they forget about the headline, the first thing people actually read.”

He recalls working with an American celebrity co-founded brand that leaned too hard on celebrity clout:

“Their selling point was 'this famous person made this,' instead of explaining the benefit. You can’t just rely on branding, you need to solve a problem.”

His method? Test, test, test. He and his team launch 3,645 ads per week. The max that Meta allowed them. Out of those, maybe 20 will actually perform.

“We see such a crazy amount of creative waste. We’d pay a designer for dozens of images, launch them, and then… nothing works. But then we get that one winner. That’s the game.”

The 97% Testing Grind: Launch, Fail, Repeat

Once they find a winning ad, they hold onto it for dear life, scaling budgets and iterating on it with tiny tweaks to keep it fresh. They keep it active for as long as the CPR (cost per result) stays within a profitable range. And when it finally dies, they revive it in a few months. If it worked once, chances are it will work again.

Fer’s method for scaling ads:

• Pause the losers—Anything that isn’t hitting the cost-per-result (CPR) threshold is shut down.
• Scale the winners—Winning ads get more budget, but gradually.
• Refresh without ruining—The best-performing ad gets minor tweaks: maybe a slightly bigger CTA, a different product shot, or a color change to trick Meta’s algorithm into thinking it’s a fresh ad.
• The “Revive Rule”—If an ad did well but became fatigued, let it rest and revive it after three months.

“People don’t realize how much an algorithm values consistency. On TikTok, you can’t raise a budget more than 15% per day without screwing things up. On Meta, it’s 20%. Go beyond that, and your campaign re-enters the learning phase—and that’s not what you want. You’re essentially resetting your progress.”

Consistency doesn’t just apply to budgets, it applies to creatives, too. You need iterative testing, not radical reinvention.

“If a certain layout or format works, don’t reinvent the wheel. Make small changes. If you change too much, you’re throwing away a winning formula and starting from scratch. The goal is always to improve by 1% at a time.”

Fer’s approach to testing is borderline obsessive:

“97% of our effort is testing. We throw 100 ideas at the wall—maybe one sticks.”

How does it work?

• He and his team publish 3,645 Ads/Week, which is Meta’s maximum limit for accounts spending €2M+ monthly.
• Automated Rules: Birch’s algorithms flag the winners
• Survival of the Fittest: Only 5–10% of ads graduate to final campaigns.

Pro Tip: “When you find a winner, let the rest fatigue and focus on that one. Pour gas on it. Then tweak tiny elements, such as color, CTA, product placement,to keep Meta’s algorithm from getting bored.”

Try Fer’s strategy to automatically pause underperformers, give a second chance to ads with late attribution, and scale winning campaigns:  

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Audience Testing: The Key to Longevity

Fer doesn’t just test creatives, he aggressively tests audiences. His audience strategy is equal parts data and intuition.

He exemplified his approach to building an audience for a fictitious creatine supplement company campaign. This is how he would do it:

1. Fitness Enthusiasts: Gym regulars chasing gains.
2. Sports Pros: Dancers, gymnasts, athletes.
3. General Consumers: Podcast listeners curious about brain health.
4. Lookalikes: Pixel-based clones of existing buyers.

Micro-segmentation 

One of Fer's most important insights was about micro-segmentation, which involves breaking audiences into hyper-specific groups and tailoring creative for each.

“You think you know your audience? You don’t. Data tells you your audience. Brands assume too much—age, gender, income level—but actual behavior is what matters. And behavior is unpredictable. That’s why audience testing is everything… You can’t just say, ‘This is for fitness lovers’—that’s too niche. A CrossFit athlete, yoga mom, and powerlifter respond to different messaging, and only testing will tell you which ads would work. The more granular you get in analyzing the data and your audiences, the better your results. The broader your audience testing, the bigger your pool of clients."

Platform Choice: Meta vs. Google

We asked Fer about his approach to creating ads on Meta vs. Google. His take? “Google’s for intent. Meta’s for storytelling.”

Google Ads work really well for territory-based ads, like “Hair salon near me”.

It’s also about being practical over being pretty: Focus on keywords users already search.

Meta Ads, on the other hand, is a creative playground. As he puts it: “Meta’s like Coca-Cola ads—unexpected, emotional, sticky.”

There is also a major issue with cross-attribution chaos. According to him, around 30% of Meta-driven sales later convert via Google.

Rules of the Game: Automate

To Fer, there is not one unique way to scale ads, run successful campaigns, and improve conversions by keeping the work manual. Automated rules are his safety net.

We asked him to share what are the rules that he uses in every campaign:

• Pause High-CPR (Cost Per Result) Ads: Kill anything exceeding the target cost per result after 3–4 days.
• Revive Sleepers: Reactivate past winners after 7 days. “Let ads rest—they’ll often perform better in round two.”
• Budget Boosts: Never increase Meta/TikTok budgets too much! Meta’s threshold is 20%, and TikTok's is 15% daily. “Otherwise, the algorithm freaks out and resets the campaign to the learning phase.”

Wrap-up

Fer’s philosophy? “Assume you’re wrong. Test anyway. The crazier the idea, the bigger the payoff.”

From earplugs on to Sydney’s Opera House to ads so controversial they triggered C-suite panic calls, Fer proves one thing: in marketing, safety is risky.

Fer’s approach to media buying is a mix of creativity, psychology, and hardcore data analysis. He’s not afraid to take risks, throw away 99% of ideas, and double down on what works.

So, if you’re looking for a formula for success in digital ads, it’s this:

• Creatives rule. Headlines hook.
• Test 100 ideas; celebrate if two work.
• Meta = storytelling. Google = intent.
• Never assume you know the audience.
• Automate ruthlessly.
• Embrace chaos—it’s where magic happens! Test like crazy.

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Wrapped up by the sound of Fiona Apple—Criminal

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