The biggest thing Meta advertisers get wrong is creative. You don't need more creative, you need more creative diversity. Let me explain.
Using a more-is-more mindset with ad creative creates two huge problems:
1. Waste of resources - making creative is a lot of work. If you are building too many of the wrong creatives, your time and money is going to waste.
2. Crap ad performance - when Meta gets the same creative over and over, it keeps showing your ads to the same people over and over. This leads to high frequency and inconsistent ad performance.
Here's how to think about true creative diversity across three dimensions:
▶️ Visual diversity
▶️ Messaging diversity
▶️ Format diversity
1️⃣ VISUAL DIVERSITY
Imagine if you had 5 different creative directors design the same campaign. All the ads would look different. Imagine if you had 5 different Instagram creators promote your product - all the posts would look different.
Meta knows which styles of posts you are clicking and which ones you are scrolling past. (For all of its +3B users). If you have visual diversity, Meta can find more of the right people who will engage with your ads.
Consider following Barry Hott for more on the Ugly Ads movement.
2️⃣ MESSAGING DIVERSITY
There's an infinite number of "ways into" your brand, your product, and your business. Without realizing it, it's likely that all of your messaging sounds the same.
Explore a wide range different ways into your brand:
- Product key features
- Before and after
- Emotional triggers
- Product use cases
- Customer reviews and testimonials
- Competitive comparison
... and so on and on and on ...
The more ways in and the more versions of your copy and ad concepts, the more likely one of those permutations is an outsized winner that performs significantly better.
Consider following Sarah Levinger for more on creative psychology.
3️⃣ FORMAT DIVERSITY
Meta has about 20 different ad placement locations across its network. It offers numerous different ad formats. And it knows which users prefer each possible location to see your ad.
If you are uploading one size creative, you are limiting the number of placements where your ad looks amazing.
If you are only creating one format of ad creative (like static square images, or vertical videos, or dynamic catalog ads) you are only getting your ads shown to a small fraction of all Meta users.
For every creative concept, create multiple formats of that idea. Feed the system diversity, and you'll get better ad performance.
Consider following Maurice Rahmey for more on media and placement best practices.
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SUMMARY
Don't waste time on endless variations of the same creative. Instead focusing on diversity so that you can reach more people, identify more ad winners, and leverage Meta Machine Learning for better ad performance.
Drop a DM or comment if you want me and the Popsixle team to run a machine learning focused creative audit for your brand.