Generic Creatives: The Silent Killer of Your Ad Performance

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[00:00:25] We implemented this across the board for all their different product lines, all their different customers, and we saw really, really great success out of the gate. Really significant year over year gains.

[00:00:40] Emily, do you typically recommend to clients that the same creative is shared across all demographics, age groups, interests? Um, all the above. Yeah. For our clients, I think the whole paid social page. Department across the board. We think that generic creative kills performance to say it lightly. Um, let's pose a scenario.

[00:01:02] So you have an e-commerce brand and you can target men or women, but each of the consumers has different purchase triggers and is gonna interact with the product and the creative differently. What we find really important is to differentiate the creatives. By demographic because what a 30-year-old man might resonate with a 50-year-old woman isn't gonna resonate with the same thing.

[00:01:30] So to generate the optimal levels of performance, we really like to take a segmented approach and customize the creatives. Specifically to the demographic, whether that be their purchase triggers, any pain points that they're facing, or even use first party data from our clients and see if specific demographics resonate best with specific products, and then market them in that way as well.

[00:01:55] I had a client that had an e-commerce client that had multiple different products, um, different product lines. Each product had a very specific niche as their target audience. So instead of showing just branded creative to each and every one of the target customers, we took a really segmented approach and segmented out our campaigns by specific product.

[00:02:20] And then within that product, we were able to customize. The ad creative, the ad copy, and the headline all to the specific target customer. We were able to leverage their pain points and purchase triggers and help push them to conversion. And then to take a step further, we were able to use this creative products.

[00:02:39] Specific creative and direct them to the product specific page. So they had a super seamless user journey and also super, super relevant and super, super engaging to each demographic. And how do you track performance between that on how someone is. Um, engaging with a certain ad. Yeah, we like to leverage all data that we can leverage.

[00:03:01] We like to use our in platform data in meta. Take a look at those KPIs, like cost per purchase, ROAS revenue, but we also then like to leverage that first party data from our clients through Shopify, WooCommerce, whatever eCommerce platform that they are using to really take a granular approach to determining success for these creatives.

[00:03:23] We also have a really cool tool in-house that we've been leveraging recently with clients called Motion. And Motion gives us a very, very granular look at performance creative. We could look at the images on the creative, the headlines on the creative, the call to actions, specific elements, a button color, and we can really dive deep into why this creative is generating the.

[00:03:49] The performance that it is and how we can replicate and learn and grow off of that. That's exactly what I was gonna say. That was perfect. Um, and have you seen that typically when you cater these ads to the specific demographics, that the engagement rates are higher? Yeah, we definitely do. Obviously if you see an ad that.

[00:04:07] Speaks very specifically to your pain points and your purchase triggers, you are gonna be much more engaged because it's just more relevant content. And we see that reflected in our in platform data as well. The ads that are really segmented and specific to demographic, to age, to gender, we tend to see higher engagement rates, lower CPAs, lower CPMs, than those really generic ads that kind of take a one size fits all approach.

[00:04:33] Can you give an example for how a younger demographic typically responds to an ad or what they respond to an ad, um, during this day and age? Yeah. I mean, I feel like everybody in the advertising space knows that the younger generation is scrolling, scrolling, scrolling on TikTok, on Instagram reels, whatever it may be.

[00:04:54] So it's super important to create content that. Stops their scroll. And in order to do that, you really have to dive in to your target customer. You have to see what are their pain points, what are their purchase triggers, what's really gonna make them take a stop and be like, I need that product, I need that service.

[00:05:12] And then how you can use the ad copy, the creative, the headline. And your URL destination to ultimately push them in the direction of conversion. I think that it's really important to think outside the box when it comes to creatives and a few of the creatives that we've done recently. We've taken, uh, like I said, a segmented approach into each, um, age group.

[00:05:34] And so for the younger. Gen Z age groups, we did some research into specific sling for products. We incorporated that. So we're using their vernacular in the creative and in the ad copy. So when they're scrolling, they're like, oh, like this is engaging, this is interesting. What does this company have to say?

[00:05:53] And then the same thing for our older demographics too, like 65 plus. There's very interesting and amazing ways that we can use our ad copy and our creative to see. Speak to the demographic, and that really helps because in this day and age when everyone's scrolling so much a one size fits all creative just gets ignored in their social feeds.

[00:06:14] You're in a scroll past, you're not gonna think twice about it. So it's really, really important to take the purchase triggers and really realize that the decision making processes vary so dramatically across the demographic segments. The younger demographic is, could be more inclined to make that really quick and easy purchase, whether that be on TikTok shop or, um, you know, just quick through the, the website.

[00:06:41] Whereas the older demographic might take a little bit more time to do that research, do that education to figure out is this product better than this? Why is it better than this? And then. Ultimately make their decision at the end of the day. So we really believe that that generic creative waste budget, because it shows irrelevant messages to the wrong audiences.

[00:07:03] And then when you're showing that I irrelevant messaging, then you really can't have your campaigns optimized and learn and grow and drive the performance that you want it to because it's not gonna drive people to make an action. So that's really important. Yeah, exactly. And with that poor demographic target, it leads to lower.

[00:07:22] Engagement, higher costs. At the end of the day, obviously we want success and growth for all of our brands, all of our clients. So really taking a highly tailored, highly custom approach is key to help generate that success. I literally have nothing to say. Every time I kept saying something, every time I kept thinking about something to say, you literally would say it right after it.

[00:07:43] I was like, okay, cool. Perfect. Amazing. Um, and then also with this demographic and segmented creative, we've had really great case studies that really show the power of highly segmented creatives. One of our clients that we onboarded, they were pushing out very generic messages, very branded messages, top of funnel, evergreen creative that really doesn't move the needle.

[00:08:11] When we took over in the account, we took a highly segmented approach and customized the ad creative to specific audiences. We use language in the ad creative that speak to some of those decision making triggers that we know that the specific target market had. In addition, we made the URL destination linked directly to the product that we were talking about in the ad.

[00:08:35] So once users navigated to the website, they didn't need to make 3, 4, 5 clicks to make the purchase. They were right on that product page. We implemented this across. The board for all their different product lines, all their different customers, and we saw really, really great success out of the gate.

[00:08:51] Really significant year over year gains. And because of the success, we continue to replicate it for future products that came out and future product lines that we needed to market. So we find that that really highly segmented, highly tailored, highly specific creative is the best way to go. Perfect. Um, quick note on the macro level as well.

[00:09:14] When we think about how people interact with their social media, I think a lot of people are more used to ads than they used to be in the past. So in the past you could really get away with a one size fits all. It was all about the audience targeting and making sure that you are targeting the right people.

[00:09:30] But I think in the past couple of years, just how. Much people are interacting with ads. It takes a little bit more, and I think that creative has really become king and it really drives our strategies when we build, what campaigns we're running, what audiences we're running. We really put creative first when we think about that.

[00:09:49] Yeah, I think that's a great call out. Especially because you know, when people are scrolling through the feed, it's not gonna be the ad copy that stops. Yeah. It's not gonna be the headline. It's really gonna be that creative. So having a very impactful, very dynamic creative is super, super important for success today on social.

[00:10:06] Not to say that having a good creative that's also talking to the client is a good idea, um, but it's gonna be the creative that really stops 'em in their tracks first. Yeah, absolutely.

[00:10:24] Thinking about competitor advantage, I think is always my first question when talking to new clients, what makes you different? What sets you apart? Because if you can't really think about that, it's not gonna resonate within your ads and you're not going to, um, you know, make that conversion when compared to another competitor.

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