SLC Framework — Service, Location, Format, Content, Details.
SLC Framework is Meta Catalyst IQ's 5-dimension creative taxonomy — Service, Location, Format, Content, Details — used to classify every ad in a healthcare account. Enables period-over-period colour-coded deltas on Spend, Results, CPL, CPM, CTR per dimension.
How it works.
Every ad in a healthcare Meta account lives at the intersection of five dimensions — the service it sells, the location it targets, the format it uses, the content angle it takes, and the specific creative variant. The SLC Framework treats those five as first-class filters. Instead of asking "which ad is winning", the framework asks "which format is winning for Testimonial content targeting IVF in the Bangalore audience", and gives the answer in the same view where an operator can drill down or roll up. The five-dimension cut is the only cut that lets a media buyer distinguish a fatiguing format from a fatiguing content angle from a fatiguing audience, because the account-level number hides all three under the same trend line.
- Service dimension. The clinical specialty being sold — IVF, cosmetic dermatology, dental implants, orthopaedic joint replacement — filtered from the ad-set name.
- Location dimension. City-code + locality-code — Bangalore-Koramangala, Delhi-Kalkaji — surfaced as a first-class filter, not buried inside audience settings.
- Format dimension. Reel, Static, Carousel, Video, GIF, Story — the mechanical container the creative lives in.
- Content dimension. Testimonial, Offer, Educational, Founder, UGC, Before-After, Q&A, Mythbuster — the narrative angle inside the format.
- Details dimension. The specific creative variant — the one testimonial with Aisha at 30-second cut, the offer version with the ₹499 consultation hook.
- Period-over-period colour. Every metric on every dimension coloured green/amber/red against the previous equivalent period — the leading-indicator shift is visible in the same view.
Why it matters for
Indian healthcare.
Dimensional slicing is how compliance stays diagnosable at scale. ASCI pre-publish reviews need to check every ad in a service line for unsubstantiable-superlative violations — SLC filters by Service in one click. NMC Code of Ethics 2023 reviews of Founder-content ads on doctor-personality creatives filter by Content = Founder. DCI before-after imagery reviews on cosmetic and dental ads filter by Content = Before-After. ART Act 2021 success-rate-claim reviews on IVF creatives filter by Service = IVF. PC-PNDT Act language checks on gynaecology creatives filter by Service = Gynae. DPDP Act 2023 lead-form consent audits filter by Format = LeadForm across every service. What is a one-click filter with SLC is a manual spreadsheet cross-reference without it, and the manual version is the one that misses.
How ICG uses this.
SLC Framework is the second screen every ICG media buyer opens inside Meta Catalyst IQ, right after the Creative Scoring Matrix. The typical Monday-morning sequence is: open the Matrix to see zone counts, open SLC to see which dimensions moved period-over-period, then drill into the specific ad sets that drove the movement. Portfolio-wide, the SLC view catches an average of 2.4 dimension-level regressions per account per week that would have been invisible at the account level — a Content angle collapsing, a Location under-delivering, a Format fatiguing — while the account-level CPL or CTR still looked flat. That two-day head-start on the drop is worth roughly a week of avoided spend on the fatiguing ad sets.
| Dimension | Question it answers | Compliance filter |
|---|---|---|
| Service | Which specialty is compounding, which is fatiguing? | ART Act · PC-PNDT · NMC by service line |
| Location | Which city / locality is winning at what cost? | State-council registration match |
| Format | Is Reel still the winning format, or has Static taken it? | LeadForm DPDP consent audit |
| Content | Is Testimonial still working, or has Educational overtaken? | DCI Before-After · NMC Founder-content |
| Details | Which specific variant is holding the line? | ASCI unsubstantiable-superlative check |
Frequently asked questions.
Why five dimensions instead of a single "top creatives" list?
A top-creatives list flattens the account into rank order and hides where the compounding is. The SLC Framework surfaces it — a Reel might be the top format, but only for Testimonials in cosmetic dermatology in the Delhi audience. Static might quietly outperform Reels on Offer content in the same account. Both facts matter for the next media call, and only a dimensional view carries both.
How does period-over-period colour coding work?
Every metric per dimension is compared against the previous equivalent period — last 7 days vs previous 7, last 30 vs previous 30 — and coloured green, amber, or red on the delta. A media buyer opens the SLC report and sees at a glance that Testimonial content dropped 22% CTR last week even while overall account CTR held flat, so the account-level number was hiding a specific dimension collapse.
What are the five metrics on each dimension?
Spend, Results, CPL, CPM, and CTR. Spend and Results give the size of the bet in each dimension; CPL and CPM give the efficiency; CTR gives the leading indicator that predicts the CPL and CPM shift a week or two out. Each dimension carries all five metrics for the current period and the previous period, with the delta colour-coded.
What if naming is bad — can the SLC report still be trusted?
No — SLC is only as reliable as the naming underneath it. If ad-set names do not follow the Naming Intelligence schema, the SLC dimension filters catch different subsets of ad sets on each run and the report becomes noise. That is why Naming Intelligence is a pre-requisite for SLC and why the SLC module blocks on a naming-compliance check at every account onboarding.
Read next.
See your account cut
by all five dimensions.
ICG runs a free 30-min Brand & Growth Diagnostic that runs the SLC Framework on your live Meta account — every dimension, every metric, colour-coded against the previous period.
