u/Easy-Adhesiveness445

I'm a freelance creative working with a low 8-figure brand on a performance deal. Nearly half of their ad spend runs through creatives I produce, including their top performers.

My comp is tied to ad spend on creatives I make. I was getting paid low five figures per month and trending up.

Then the brand ran into a product-side legal issue that forced us to pull the winning ads and relaunch with edits. Engagement on the ads is gone, and my monthly pay dropped by more than half.

The work to fix this is just to create new winning ads, and we're doing it. But the ads that were producing my earnings were the result of winning concepts plus a good amount of accumulated engagement, which kept them running profitably and at the top.

Questions for anyone who's dealt with this:

1. Has anyone switched from performance-based comp to a different structure when responsibility grows beyond just your own ads, building the creative team, systems, AI agents, etc.?
2. Would you renegotiate? If so, temporary base, recovery clause, hybrid structure?
3. Anyone built contract protection against this kind of scenario?

I appreciate any takes on this.