The archive · Work & Ways of Doing · Operational decision · 2026
Swan Studio puts creative and media in one room — paid division reaches seven figures
Swan Studio added media buying beside its creative team, tying spend, data and the next creative iteration to the client's bottom line.
Swan Studio
What it had to solve
Swan Studio began as a creative-only social agency. Clients wanted it to run the spend behind its work, but the team needed accountability to business outcomes rather than isolated channel metrics.
How it works
Swan Studio started as a creative-only social agency. When clients asked it to put media spend behind the work, co-founders Josh Israeli and Dean Gruskin added a paid media division rather than sending the brief to a separate media agency.
They hired Vatsal Prasad to lead advisory-led media buying. The media and creative teams sat on the same accounts, read results together and moved the next creative round into production as soon as data showed what was or was not working.
The team stayed channel agnostic, tying allocation to the client's P&L or revenue target and building proprietary tools for planning, testing and scaling. In less than a year, the division passed seven figures in annual revenue; clients cited gains including 60% more monthly quotes, 5× revenue and 400% more paid members.
Why it lands
- Clients wanted one team to connect the creative idea with the media spend behind it.
- Shared accounts let performance data change the next creative iteration without waiting in another agency's queue.
- A channel-agnostic team could double down on the routes delivering the best return rather than defending a platform specialty.
- Holding the agency to the same business numbers as the client made accountability concrete.
What it did
The division passed seven figures in annual revenue in under a year. Named clients reported about 60% more monthly quotes, 5× revenue and 400% more paid members.
What you can take
When creative is the biggest performance lever, put the people who buy distribution beside the people who make the work, and measure both against the same business outcome.
Since then
Swan Studio said the model changed the kind of brief it was considered for: brands began bringing it conversations that might previously have gone to a media agency and a creative agency separately. The agency planned to keep investing people and money behind the combined division.
Sources
spotted an error? The archive wants to know.
Your turn
You just read one. Describe the brief you are staring at, and see who has been given the same problem.
Free account · 3 free questions · no card