Happy Sunday. Hope everybody is safe and sound after the craziness of the weekend. .Today let's talk about creative, specifically creative strategy. It's a hot topic with a lot of debate and different ideologies on how to test and format things. The most important factors are product offer, seasonality, and macro trends. But when it comes to creative testing, the actual creative is crucial.
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Media buyers, myself included, often discuss the right way to test—cost caps, ABO, CBO, and other setups. These are important, but they aresecondary to creative. You should focus more on your creative than your account structure. A good account structure can break success, but it can't make it successful.
That's my take on creative testing and account structures. Now, let's talk about the more important part: creative. You need a combination of tried and true iterations and new, wildly different concepts to scale and get outsized returns. I learned the terms 'creative exploration' and 'exploitation' from the Marketing Operators Podcast by Connor McDonald and from Meta and a few agencies. Essentially, you need a mix of proven messaging and new ideas.
When iterating or exploiting, make sure you're changing large enough variables to get significant results. Small changes often create trends rather than breakthroughs. With machine learning, it's more challenging to revive a winner by just testing a new hook. To reduce ad fatigue and reach a new audience, you need drastically different ads.
Iteration is still valuable, but I think you spend little time on iterating losers in an attempt to turn them into winners. I think that is almost worthless, and there are a few other ways to iteratie or "exploit" your creative for success:
First, focus some time on medium performers where improvements in hook, watch time, or click-through rate could make a difference. You can unlock some scale here.
Next, take good performers and test them in different formats: static, GIF, video, UGC, production video, short-form, long-form, but with the same messaging.
I'd say about half to 60% of your time should be on exploitation, or iterating. But to unlock new audiences and scale, you need to spend a bunch of time on net new exploration.
Exploration is about doing drastically different things. It's not about looking at competitors or your ad account. Fresh eyes, new perspectives, and changing your setting can be incredibly helpful. Allow yourself time to be creative. Look outside your industry for ideas.
Maybe 10-20% of your ads and time should be on new concepts for outsized returns. Stop copying what everyone else is doing. Take time to come up with new concepts, even if they don't work. Allow yourself to come up with some ideas you will never run. Have fun with it; channel your inner Rick Rubin. Don't forget the creative part of creatvie strategy.
Hope you have a good weekend and are ready for a busy week. We are opening store number six in Williamsburg, Brooklyn area. Please check it out if you're in the area. We're gonna start it off pretty low key but will be doing a bunch of marketing and events in late summer and fall.
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See you next time!
-Cody