Proov is a woman-founded startup that invented the first FDA-cleared at-home PdG (progesterone marker) test to confirm successful ovulation. Since developing this first test, Proov has expanded to a wide range of other at-home fertility tests.

Proov’s goal is to help women get more information about their hormones and cycles so they can get to their goals faster, and they wanted video ads to support that.

Because the PDG test is an innovative test that confirms ovulation rather than predicts it, Proov has to provide a significant amount of education for their audience in their ads and on their website. In particular, Proov focused on sharing how their PDG test differs from the standard ovulation test seen in the pharmacy.

 

 

Growth is the Name of the Game

As a venture-backed start-up company, Proov needed to maximize their growth. They saw the high conversion of video ads as the solution to getting information into the hands of women trying to conceive while achieving that growth.

Before working with Primer, Proov primarily focused on static ads created by their small, in-house marketing team to educate and empower women during their fertility journey. By 2022, they started making the transition to video ads, which are shown to drive 48% higher sales than their static equivalents.

Like many performance marketers, they struggled to find the resources to create the video ads themselves for the following reasons:

• Their internal design team was small and did not have any video experience.
• They didn’t have prior knowledge to optimize and test video ads at the scale and speed they needed to achieve maximum growth.
• Their small in-house team couldn’t support the volume of creative needed for video ad testing.

Proov knew they needed a partner who could unlock their growth potential and fill a pipeline of stellar, informative creative for video ads and landing pages.

Enter Primer.

 

Partnering with Primer to Create and Test High-Converting Video Ads

Proov hired Primer in early 2022 to solve this problem of boosting their growth through video ads. Proov wanted to learn how to leverage video ads and landing pages to empower women and educate them about their cycle.

To help Proov build their strategy, Primer shared proven video ads, templates, hook ideas, and what works well with other brands.

 

Primer’s On Demand team worked as a resource to

• Provide proven concepts that they can easily build from to create high-converting video ads
• Share designs made by growth experts to ensure they are meeting all performance marketing best practices
• Deliver video ads and landing pages in as little as three business days so they can continuously test and find new wins 

 

Using Proven Templates and Themes for Video Ads

Using these templates and examples, Proov was able to jump-start their work with Primer.

According to Maddie Barbera, Marketing Manager at Proov, “When we got off the ground, we had no knowledge of what was going to work and what kind of videos to make, so we thought we should test it all. We used a lot of Primer’s hooks and stacked our queue really long, which taught us a lot about what content works and what doesn’t.”

Proov infused education into their video ads and landing pages using the ideas shared by the Primer team to engage with their “information seeker” persona, women searching for information about their fertility journey. With their long queue of creative in the Primer On-Demand platform, Proov tested different ideas using these hooks and examples to understand what video content works best for their target customers.

Proov quickly learned that what you expect to perform might not always work.

“We had a lot of hypotheses about what content would perform well,” Barbera said, “but we were rarely right. We tried ads about ovarian reserve testing to go up against a competitor, but they totally tanked. Primer taught us a lot about how to educate people.”

After learning and testing, they found that the How It Works template resonated well with their audience and provided the education necessary to move toward a purchase decision.

Template:

Example:

Leveraging Existing UGC Content

Along with learning about what works and what doesn’t, Primer also enabled Proov to leverage their cache of existing UGC content and video testimonials of women getting pregnant with the support of Proov products. Primer, Proov was able to capitalize on this UGC to create ad and landing page content quickly and easily.

The process was simple: Proov simply has to give Primer a script and the vibe of the ad, and Primer’s creative team can splice together UGC and other video content into high-conversion video ads and a partnering landing page.

This process of quickly generating content with Primer’s support allowed Proov’s in-house team to focus their energy on retargeting and structuring their ads according to their customer’s journey rather than spending time learning video and becoming growth-advertising experts.

For example, they found the following sequence resonated with their audience and moved them through the buyer’s journey:

Starting with a “how Proov works” style ad

Retargeting that same audience with video ads that focus on their founder’s story

Ending with a UGC-style ad helped their customers convert

 

This order of ads appealed to their “information seeker” persona because it started with education about the products, shared a deeply emotional story that gives the brand ethos, and ended with a real woman using Proov products during her journey to conceive.

 

Education-Focused Landing Pages

Before working with Primer, Proov knew that landing pages would be important, but they didn’t realize just how important they would be to their overall strategy.

Primer helped Proov reach women seeking information about infertility and at-home testing by strategically pairing ads with a landing page that digs deeper, delivers more information to that woman, and persuades her to try Proov at-home tests.

 

Proov grabs the reader’s attention on this landing page with the question, “Want to Get Pregnant?” coupled with a video showing how easy it is to test with Proov. Then they share a quiz to help women make an informed decision on the right testing product to purchase, a walkthrough of how easy testing can be with Proov products, and testimonials by real Proov users to provide layers of education to their audience.

The best part: Proov found that these landing pages were continuously reusable. After finding the ones that tested well, they updated packaging photos and other images as needed to keep the landing page fresh.

 

Results: Taking Ad Creative Production from 0 to 100

Before working with Primer, Proov relied solely on static ads produced by their internal resources.

By working with Primer On-Demand, Proov accelerated their video ad creation and now has 60 successful ads and 18 landing pages created by Primer that they can leverage to drive conversions.

According to the marketing team at Proov, working with Primer has “really taken landing page and video production from 0 to 100.”

 

Want to Partner with Primer?

Primer works to help our partners, like Proov, develop winning ads and scale by handling the process for you, including creative strategy, design, production, reporting, and media buying.

If you need high-quality ad creative with a rapid turnaround, our online platform Primer On-Demand gives you access to videos, images, and landing pages with a proven track record of driving conversions.

Schedule a free consultation with Primer to learn how creative testing can help you script successful video ads.

 

Let’s say you’ve crafted the perfect paid social ad using proven ad templates. The big question is, now that you have your audience’s attention, how do you get them to take the next step toward making a purchase?

The answer to that lies in your CTA, or call to action.

The most effective CTAs blend into the video or image around them. Yet this may leave you wondering how to write a less overt CTA that still captivates a viewer and converts them into a potential customer.

When it comes to creating video ads that will help maximize growth, we don’t believe you have to reinvent the wheel. Often, great marketing is about using what works and making it fit your brand’s messaging and voice.

Primer has tested thousands of video ads on social platforms like Facebook, TikTok, Instagram, and others, and we’ve learned how to develop a CTA that converts while also feeling organic to the user and native to the social platform.

Why Should You Include a CTA?

Simply put, CTAs drive conversions.

When you end a video ad with a CTA, you’re prompting your audience to make a purchase, learn more about a product, or sign up for a service.

In other words, you convinced your target audience to watch the ad with an attention-grabbing hook and showed them the important details, frame-by-frame, by using a proven video ad template. Your CTA tells them what to do next.

Once your audience is inspired to take action, you can boost your conversion rate by having your CTA lead to a landing page tailored to your audience’s ad experience.

 

Yet, certain types of CTAs aren’t equally effective on all social platforms. In fact, on some platforms, a CTA done wrong can appear out of place for users.

Take TikTok, for instance.

Did you know TikTok ads that blend into the native content of the platform perform much better than those with a prominent CTA?

That’s because TikTok audiences are likely to click away from ads that feel like ads. Users quickly spot and move on from ads that go heavy on branding and a more traditional, overt ad-style presentation.

In these cases, it’s better to let users find their way to the product organically by matching the style of the platform. For instance, you can convert on TikTok by adopting a single-influencer UGC style, avoiding ending with brand cards and overt CTAs, and leaning into native elements of TikTok in your ads.

 

CTAs That Convert

Regardless of the social platform where you’re running your ad, a CTA should feel organic to the user and native to the social platform. That’s where we come in.

Check out these 25 examples of CTAs Primer has developed that are proven to convert.

 

Native Style

As we touched on above, users on platforms like TikTok are fast to click away from ads that feel overproduced and non-native. On the flip side, a native-style ad mimics the elements used on a specific platform, like text and colors, trending sounds and music, and a video format consistent with other users who post on the platform.

1.     No CTA included (a purely native-style ad).
2.     End with a search bar. Start your ad with a user searching Google and end with a CTA that is your search term.

Search Bar Example:

 

 

UGC Style

A UGC content format is a way to personalize your ads by using creators and UGC ad templates to give them an organic feel. Continue that user voice in the CTA. Test including the CTA both in text on the screen and in the voiceover. We find that using just in the voiceover is powerful, like in the example below, because it feels more like a user’s unique point of view.

3.     Give [brand] a try. (Great in a customer or creator’s voice: “Definitely, give State Bags a try!”)
4.     Go check out [brand]. (Another good one for a creator’s voice)
5.     Don’t sleep on [product]. Order today!
6.     Don’t waste any more time. Give it a try.

UGC Example:

 

 

“Get Started!”

Inspire your audience to act by showing them how simple it is to take the first step with your brand.

7.     Get started with [brand].
8.     Get started for [price].
9.     Get started online.

 

Problem/Solution Oriented

Highlight a problem or problems your audience might have, or offer solutions to problems they didn’t know existed.

10.   Fix your [problem].
11.   Are you ready to let [brand] [solve problem] for you?
12.   Discover your [solution] today. (Example: Discover your custom lawn plan today.)
13.   Upgrade your [problem area] today. (Example: Upgrade your outdoor space today.)
14.   Kickstart [solution] with [brand] today. (Example: Kickstart their reading progress with Ello today.)
15.   Order [product] today and get [benefit]. (Example: Order a Zen One bundle today and get better sleep in 1-3 nights.)

Fix your [problem] Example: 

 

Promotional/Freebie

Everyone loves to save money on a good deal. Offer your audience a promotion that’s free or discounted, such as a membership, shipping, or money off their purchase.

16.   Sign up for free today.
17.   Free shipping (use the CTA to communicate a special offer).
18.   Get your free [offer/analysis/quiz results].
19.   Give it a try for just [price].

Free Shipping Example:

 

Product-focused

Using product-focused ad templates and content is a great way to build up to a CTA that drives home the message about your product.

20.   Find your perfect [product/attribute].
21.   Discover [product] just for you.
22.   Start searching. (This one is great for marketplaces or stores with multiple SKUs where you’re communicating to a wide variety of consumers.)
23.   Sign up for your first [product] today. (This CTA is effective for subscription brands.)
24.   Find yours today. (Note that this CTA should be used in voiceover and not in the text on the screen.)
25.   Say 👋 to [brand].

Say Hi to [brand] Example:

 

Beyond Ad Templates: How Primer Helps Drive Growth

Using these CTAs in your ads can help drive conversions and boost growth, and they can be easily incorporated into one of Primer’s tested and proven video ad templates.

Remember, hypergrowth marketing is all about using what you already know works to build winning ads!

Beyond offering a range of ad templates to craft high-converting social ads, Primer gives you the tools to keep pace in a rapidly evolving marketing landscape. We help our partners develop top-performing ads and scale them effectively through rapid, high-volume testing of your videos and social ads. This gives you the insights to tap into current trends, iterate top-performing ad content, and maximize your growth.

Primer handles the process for you, including

• Creative strategy
• Design
• Production
• Reporting
• Media buying

Schedule a free consultation with Primer to learn how creative testing can help you create successful video ads with CTAs that will take your brand’s growth to the next level.

At Primer, we talk a lot about ad testing. There’s a simple reason why: it works. In our full-service agency, we run performance marketing for dozens of brands. Each of them comes to us with an aggressive growth goal. Ad testing is the way we hit their goals.

We run new tests every two weeks, following our Outlier Method. In one month, our testing schedule looks like this:

We aim to alternate new, big idea tests with scaling tests that create variations on our top performers. In each group of tests, we create videos, copy and a landing page (we often test static images too).

In the example above, the “big idea” test is the designer highlight, while the “scaling top performers” test is the scaling or iteration test.

This testing cadence fills the creative pipeline, ensuring there is always fresh creative and new opportunities to find a top-performing ad.

We know that when we don’t follow this cadence, performance suffers. In the past, for various reasons, a few of our agency partners didn’t sustain this testing schedule continuously.

When their tests fell short, so did their number of wins, ultimately affecting their CPA and ROAS.

In one month, for example, when our partners fell short of their testing cadence, they generated 0 new wins.

No Ad Testing

In contrast, in the same month, the partners who tested consistently saw significant wins and consistent or improved performance, generating performance that was 2.55 times better than the partners who did not test.

Consistent Ad Testing

What is a win? A win, or Outliers as we call them, are generally ads that perform better than the rest in their campaign. We define them by this criteria:

• Not identified as a new win in a previous month
• Live for at least 14 days
• At least a 10% improvement over average CPA/ROAS OR 5% below the big win CPA/ROAS goal
• A minimum of 10 conversions

Ad Testing Can Be Hard

There are a lot of good reasons why you may not be testing a lot in your ad accounts.

Isn’t It Easier to Optimize for Growth?

It could feel good to make immediate changes in the ad platform. When account performance is not ideal, it’s a natural tendency to want to make quick account optimizations.

This type of scrambling, however, takes away from bigger priorities, like strong ideation and development for new creative tests. What results is an account that is just treading water.

Once ads are fatigued, it’s rare (if ever) that they come back and perform at peak levels. It’s better to take what you learned from those ads and keep building.

Ad Testing Takes Time

Creative testing can seem time consuming. It takes time and preparation to develop a creative roadmap and the creative assets you need to test. Maybe you’re not sure where assets are or what the best messaging is. Testing can feel like you’re just throwing a bunch of stuff at the wall to see what sticks.

The truth is… you are. But it’s important to start noticing what sticks and building from there. Once you unlock the key creative learnings for accounts, briefs become much easier to write because you have such a strong baseline to build from. You can mix and match what’s working for scaling sprints or build off them for new big ideas.

A repeated testing cadence has an outsized impact in the performance of your ad account.

Ad accounts with consistent creative testing have fewer daily fluctuations and can ride the small ups and downs of daily account performance because of the bigger creative wins that improve overall account performance.

Is Creative Testing Expensive? 

It’s true that testing ad sets are almost above campaign averages. However, if you are building off of your learnings from those tests, you should find outliers that make incremental improvement towards your CPA goal.

Creative testing and learning is just like any other journey — you can only take one step at a time. Taking those individual steps will lead you to eventually reach your goal and consistent cost savings that far outweigh the costs of creative development and production.

Ad accounts with creative testing performed 2.55x better than those without testing.

Test More, Win More.

When performance starts to drop for one of partners, the creative testing cadence is the first thing we look at. We suggest you do too.

Are you running enough ad tests? Here are a few resources to help you find out and plan:

• How many ads you should be testing
• What to test (big ideas vs. small iterations) 
• The step-by-step guide to the Outlier Method of testing 

Looking for Help With Ad Testing?

Maintaining this cadence can be tricky. If you need help filling your creative pipeline with high-quality ads, check out Primer’s On-Demand creative service that delivers conversion-focused ad creative in 2 – 4 days.

For a growth partner that can handle your creative and testing strategy from ideation through to analysis, schedule a call with Primer’s full-service agency team.

 

One of the most effective forms of digital advertising today is performance user-generated content (UGC). We’ll break down what is performance UGC, share the essential elements of successful UGC, and give you four UGC video ad templates you can use for your ads right now.

What Is Performance UGC?

User-generated content (UGC) is content created by individual users to share information or tell a story. Digital social platforms like TikTok and Instagram helped to popularize UGC with video-focused social feeds that spotlight the first-person point of view. Traditional UGC content features the user or customer of a specific product telling their own, genuine account of their experience.

Performance UGC is when you apply the best practices from traditional UGC to digital advertising, and create UGC-style ads that are designed to convert.

The Essential Elements of a UGC Ad

The goal of a performance-focused UGC-style ad is to feel native or organic within the social platform where you’re advertising. If it sticks out and feels different, the user is likely to immediately recognize it as an ad and scroll past it. If it grabs attention and feels organic, then it has a higher chance of stopping their thumb and getting engagement.

Here are the essential elements of a top-performing UGC ad:

UGC Ads Are Not Overly Polished or Produced 

When creating a UGC ad, avoid the tendency to make the ad feel professional or polished. This applies to all businesses, including B2B advertising. If it feels like it’s been professionally produced, you have immediately lost the feeling of “user-generated content.”

Rather than smooth, flashy transitions between frames, use quick cuts. Eliminate text transitions — they should appear as they do in organic images and videos in the platform.

❌ Brand-driven design using brand fonts and polished graphics	✅ User-focused video footage using text in the native style of the platform

UGC Ads Use a First-Person Perspective 

UGC videos have a conversational style and appear as if they are coming from the point of view of one person. Successful UGC video ads feel as if they are relatable — ”this person is like me” or “this person has traits that I admire”.

When putting together your UGC ad, try to stick to one featuring just one person in the video if possible. If you have multiple shots, try a montage approach featuring many users in quick succession. Then, connect your footage with voiceover from a single person to reinforce the first-person point of view.

UGC Ads Have Sound On

Gone are the days when sound was considered disruptive in your social feed. Today, users expect sound on, and when done right, it adds to the experience. We recommend including a voiceover with every video and music when you can. Look for trending sounds on the platform where you’re advertising and incorporate them when they fit your brand and goals.

How to Create a UGC Video That Fits Your Brand

A common objection to UGC ads is that they can feel “off-brand.” We understand. Here are some tips on how you can create UGC video ads that serve your brand well and deliver a good experience for your audience.

Study the Ad Platform 

First, consider the environment where your ad will run. Will a polished, branded ad feel natural in that environment? If so, then go for it. If you’re looking to run ads in social feeds, like Instagram, TikTok, Facebook or Snapchat, a high-production ad may feel out of place and stick out as an ad. Look at the trends in the platform and identify the ones that feel like the strongest fit for your brand. Small trends like a sound or text style can help your ad feel more organic while still staying true to your brand.

Pick the Right Influencer 

To create an on-brand UGC ad, first start with the creator or influencer featured in your ad. Who is your ideal customer? Select an influencer who represents that person. If you’re working with a creative partner, share samples of creators who feel like a strong representation of your audience. It can also be helpful to pull examples of creators who do not represent your brand. If your creator is a strong representation of your brand, the content will likely match too.

Don’t Over Direct 

Avoid over directing your UGC ad. It can be a natural tendency to want to control the direction of the ad to help protect your brand, but overly produced UGC ads can easily feel scripted and forced. Social influencers or creators have a unique point of view, and you’re hiring them to share it. Embrace their creativity and give them the space to tell the story in their own way.

If you’ve identified an influencer who is a strong match for your brand, you should feel comfortable knowing that this is in line with your audience. Include brand don’ts so they are aware of what is off limits, but then give them the space to talk about your brand in their own special way.

Four UGC Video Ad Templates You Can Use Now

Now that we have the basics covered, here are four UGC video ad templates you can use for your ads. You may notice that each of these has three common elements:

• Engaging hook that grabs users’ attention within the first three seconds
• Main message
• CTA

These elements are essential for any conversion-focused video ad. When we’re building video ads, we apply several different themes to this framework to test different creative approaches. The four themes below are some of our top performers.

At Primer, we like to say “great marketers steal” and so we encourage you to steal these templates and use them for your UGC ads.

Need help creating your ads? Check out Primer On-Demand.

Press + Testimonial UGC Ad Template 

What it does: Uses press quotes and customer testimonials in creative to tell the story of how and why the product works. It provides social proof and validation that the product works and that customers love it.

Example:

 

How the example uses the template:

How It Works UGC Ad Template 

What it does: Explains to customers how to solve a key problem and presents your product as the solution. This can be humorous or more didactic.

Example:

 

How the example uses this template:

Buyer Decision Questions UGC Ad Template 

What it does: Answers the most important Buyer Decision Questions (BDQs) that potential customers would ask themselves during the purchasing process.

Example:

 

How the example uses the template:

X Reasons Why UGC Ad Template

What it does: Gives the user several reasons why this product can solve their problems.

Example:

 

How the example uses this template:

Once you’ve selected your template, turn the table from the examples above into a creative brief by swapping the example text for your copy and send it over to your design team. (Or grab our creative brief template here.)

Get Help Creating UGC Video Ads

Looking for help sourcing creators and producing UGC video ads? Primer now offers an on-demand service for UGC video ads that can help concept, plan, source and produce video ads in as little as 18 – 20 days. Schedule a call to learn more.

As we wind down 2022 and look ahead to the New Year, many marketers scale back ad spend and slowly transition into January. At Primer, we recommend the exact opposite. Instead, we suggest you start prepping your next video ad creative brief and go big into Q5. We’ll help you get a jumpstart with our high-converting How It Works ad creative template.

Get Ready to Scale Up During the Cheapest CPMs of the Year

Q5 is the “hidden quarter”. It’s the period between December 26 and mid January, when CPMs go down and engagement is high.

During the 2021-2022 Q5 period, TikTok reported a 22% decrease in CPMs and a 24% increase in video views. At Primer, we have seen similar decreases in CPMs across all channels, including TikTok, Facebook/Instagram and Google. CPAs have also dropped as much as 32% during the same period.

So why don’t more brands take advantage? Many marketers still think that January is quiet outside of health and wellness. While health and wellness brands do very well, Q5 can benefit any brand poised for the drop in costs.

Skip the “New Year, New You” Messaging

As you’re gearing up for Q5, you can skip the New Year, New You messaging. That overplayed tactic elicits instant eyerolls from most consumers. Instead, focus on your brand’s unique value proposition and mix 2023 into the messaging to ensure relevancy.

Use the How It Works Theme

At Primer, we have a playbook of several themes we know drive strong performance. One of those proven themes is what we call “how it works”. In this concept, we explain the individual steps a prospective customer would go through to get from their problem to a solution.

This theme is very powerful because it provides a step-by-step definition of how quick and easy it is to get the desired outcome.

Whether you’re using this theme to produce video ads, image ads, or a landing page, this concept is clear and concise. It breaks down the product or service into short, actionable steps that feel easy and relatable.

Try This Ad Creative Template for Image Ads

When you’re working with static image ads, the goal is to convey as much information as possible, while still keeping the image clear and attention-grabbing. Here are a few ways we achieve this:

Simple Steps 

Break your image up into four sections and walk the user through each step to go from problem to desired solution.

How I_____ 

In this image, we break down a product by showing how it helped solve the problem. If possible, it’s great to share specific information here (e.g. ingredients) to provide proof of the solution.

Checklist 

This simple image format breaks down the steps from problem to solution in a checklist format.

Improve Your Video Ads with This Ad Creative Template

When creating a video ad using the How It Works theme, the goal is to quickly and succinctly walk users through the steps from problem to solution. To make that easier, we created a winning script that does just that.

Here it is in action:

And here we break down how we used the template to produce this video. (Pro tip: if your product involves an online purchase, show video footage of the user going through that process. Even better if it’s on a mobile device so it feels familiar when users are scrolling through their phones!)

To make creating video ads even easier, we put together a downloadable How It Works video ad creative brief.

Convert Users With This How It Works Landing Page Creative Template

When How It Works ads are combined with a How It Works landing page, you can be sure that your potential customers have the information they need to fully understand how your product or service can help them.

Similar to images and videos, the How It Works landing page breaks down the steps it takes for a prospective customer to go from problem to solution with your product.

View the page here
.

In this example, we combine the step-by-step process with customer testimonials and press logos to provide proof of its effectiveness. When you’re creating your landing page, follow this same structure to balance explanation with proof.
Here are more tips on how to create landing pages that convert.

Start Testing Now

Now that you have the framework in place, we recommend you start testing right away. The sooner you can get your ads live, the longer you have to find wins that you can scale when CPMs drop around Christmas Day.

In between creating and optimizing ads these past few weeks, our team of growth marketing experts came together to talk about what we expect to see in digital advertising in 2023. The conversation quickly got exciting.

It’s no secret that the past couple of years in the digital ad space have been challenging — privacy changes, COVID, supply chain issues, inflation — but we believe the future is pretty bright.

We predict 2023 is going to be a big, disruptive year for digital ads. Here’s how:

UGC Will Dominate Ad Creative

Video ad creative outperformed static ads in almost all cases in 2022. In 2023, ads will be dominated by UGC.

User-generated or influencer-created video ads are an incredibly powerful form of advertising that leverage the influence of one person’s opinion about a product or service. We’ve seen UGC video ads take off in the past year, evolving from unscripted, complicated videos to more strategic, organized, native-style testimonials.

 

At Primer, we expect that the production quality of UGC will continue to rise as more content creators participate. Video and recording technology will continue to accelerate, bringing with it features that were previously only accessible to studios. The gap between professionally produced content and that made from individuals will continue to shrink. 

With higher quality creator content, we believe the lines between traditional PR and paid advertising will become more blurred. Content creators will see the value in participating in ads, and brands will gain trust in the creator. Brands will start to shift dollars from these traditional forms of PR into more measurable media like paid social.

As a result, whitelisting will be critical next year. Users will crave more genuine content from their favorite creators, with fewer ads. Marketplaces like the TikTok Creative Exchange and the forthcoming Instagram Creator Marketplace will make it easier than ever for brands to find creators to whitelist.

Ultimately, we believe that brands that have historically shied away from UGC ad creative will start to test the waters, further validating this powerful form of advertising.

This Will Be the Year of TikTok

At Primer, we’ve been bullish on TikTok for a while now — having seen the impact of the platform first-hand for our partners — but we believe that 2023 will be the year that TikTok starts to see a massive increase in ad spend. 

The perception of TikTok will continue to improve as major brands and less-obvious verticals (e.g. B2B) will understand the opportunity beyond just teenagers.

Share will shift away from challenged ad platforms (Twitter, Snapchat) and into TikTok.

TikTok will also have a continued impact on other ad channels. TikTok-first ad creative will become more prevalent on Instagram and YouTube Shorts and could even bleed into OTT. We have already seen TikTok-first ad creative work on other platforms in 2022, and we expect that as it becomes more mainstream, the style will become even more effective on other channels.

We don’t see TikTok’s top-notch business team slowing down any time soon either. TikTok is innovating at rapid speed and supporting their advertisers unlike any other platform today with a strong ads manager, incredibly helpful reps, and resources like the TikTok Creative Exchange. As TikTok continues to grow, we expect this level of service to grow as well, introducing new ad formats that will serve a wider variety of advertisers.

All in all, the combination of TikTok’s friendly ad environment, the improving perception of the platform and the power of UGC (native to TikTok) set the stage for a pretty big year for TikTok.

AI Is Going to Become Part of the Creative Process

This year, AI in marketing creative went from a Twitter meme to a killer app. In 2023, it’s going to become part of the creative process. 

Generative AI — when the machine creates something new, rather than analyzing something that exists — has begun to take hold in the marketing creative landscape. AI text tools like Jasper.ai and Copy.ai have matured to become a solid resource for first drafts or thought starters for things like ad copy headlines, blog posts, and landing page copy.

AI imagery, while still awkward, can be leveraged as a way to storyboard or concept a future photo, video or design. Agencies like BBDO are already testing image generation for brainstorming with the AI tool, Stable Diffusion.

In 2023, we will see some savvy, scrappy startups begin to use AI for the majority of their creative needs, shifting what was an hour-plus in Canva to 5 minutes using AI to create a graphic or blog post.

Larger companies and agencies will start leveraging AI to assist with copywriting. While it may not result in the final product, it can quickly and efficiently jumpstart the creative process by getting ideas flowing. They may also use AI to draft concepts and streamline communication between marketers and designers. Mockups will lose relevance as marketers can generate 20 AI drafts and send 2-3 of those to a designer that are close to what they need.

AI and machine learning will be at the forefront of iterative testing and ad creation, especially for static images. We will begin to see this natively integrated into martech tools to help generate fast iterations on an image and speed up the workflow.

This also expands the pool of creative talent. People without copywriting or creative skills will be able to quickly generate draft concepts that would have taken time, coordination and resources. The skill to successfully prompt AI to generate high-quality output will give you and your business a leading edge over the competition.

More Trends to Watch

In addition to the three big, disruptive trends mentioned above, we also believe that these shifts below will have a meaningful impact on the advertising landscape in 2023. 

• CTV and OTT grow fast. Cross-platform attribution tools have gotten more sophisticated and gained wider adoption in the past year, opening up the possibility to measure expanded channels. At the same time, CTV and OTT targeting has advanced to be competitive with the targeting capabilities in paid social. This combination points to big growth in 2023.

• Product photography is powerful. Shoppable DPA ads have proven to be very effective, and with more shoppable capabilities being built into social platforms, we expect this ad format to gain in popularity in 2023. Strong product photography will become more important to leverage these shoppable ads.

• Meta invests in advertisers. We saw this start to happen with Advantage+ Shopping Campaigns (ASC) in 2022, and we expect to see more improvements to the platform and support in the coming year.

What Won’t Change in 2023

We predict that 2023 will be a disruptive and exciting year, but there are a few things that we feel confident won’t change.  

• Creative is king. At Primer, we’ve long believed that creative is the biggest lever for growth, and we don’t see that changing any time soon. Ad platforms continue to get more automated, removing the ability to optimize for growth. The real gains are made when you have a continuous pipeline of ad creative, consistently testing new ideas and iterations to find winning ads.

• Continued focus on profitability. LTV was the metric to watch in 2022, and we believe that’s here to stay for 2023. Brands are more focused on profitability and we expect that again next year, as brands continue to navigate through an ever-changing economy.

• Paid social holds strong. Sure, you can say we’re biased on this one, but we also have an inside track. The trends in UGC, TikTok, and AI all help improve efficiency and effectiveness within paid social advertising, and with the continued focus on profitability, budgets will remain allocated to measurable channels like paid social.

At Primer, we use these trends and our insights from working with disruptive brands to plan our roadmap in 2023. It’s exciting, for sure. If you’re looking to dive into any of these trends or simply fuel your growth with better ads, we’d love to help. Schedule a call by clicking below.

Many marketers look to hire an in-house design team so that they can always have on-brand ad creative made by team members that are looped into the day-to-day intricacies of a business. However, for companies that are looking for a specific area of expertise or others that can’t hire a full design team, working with an agency to produce ad creative can provide outsized benefits.

At Primer, our focus is on creating top-notch growth marketing creative to test social media ads. And we test a lot of ads. To limit the time spent back and forth in review stages, we’ve learned some tricks that help assure our partners that they’ll get perfect creative every time.

Here’s how to get perfect creative every time when working with an agency.

Align on Vision and Goals

The first thing that should be discussed, even before signing a contract with an agency, is your goals. Share:

• what you are willing to invest now and in the future
• what channels you want to start with vs. what channels you want to expand to 
• types of media you’ll want to use
• what resources you can provide vs. what is expected to be provided by the agency (such as videos of paid UGC for ads)

You may be tempted to hire an agency to solve an immediate problem, but it would be much more beneficial long-term to make sure they can help you reach future goals as well. Launching Facebook Ads with static brand-content may be your priority right now, but if you know you’ll eventually want to expand to TikTok with creator UGC, you’ll want to make sure you hire an agency that can create branded ads, video ads, and film UGC footage. That way, you won’t have to find a brand new agency 4 months down the road.

Related: The Growth Marketing Team Members You Get When You Hire Primer

Embrace the Agency Partnership and Speak in Problem/Solution When Reviewing Ad Creative

Designers don’t know your brand as well as you. Likewise, you as a growth marketer may not know everything they know about design best practices. There are many intricacies on both sides that contribute to the success of a creative asset. It’s important to lean on each other for expertise and ask questions. 

To get better ad creative, try to speak in “problem and solution” rather than critiques. For instance, our designers are focused on conversions, not brand marketing. This may result in an asset that may look different than your typical brand creative. Instead of requesting direct edits, find out what they were trying to achieve and help them to do it in a more on-brand way. You might even learn some conversion best practices along the way! 

While simply telling them what to do might be faster, it would be more time efficient in the long-run to discuss the thought process behind their design choices and identify the problem of why it doesn’t work for your brand. That way, the designer can learn from those mistakes and make amazing creative that converts both now and in the future.

Embrace these great opportunities to learn from each other and build a more solid partnership, keeping in mind that everyone is working toward the same goal.

Related: Meet the Primer Design Team

Make Detailed Creative Briefs or Discuss a Detailed Creative Strategy

When discussing the creative strategy or putting together a creative brief, you’ll want to be as detailed as possible in order to get the best creative. The agency needs to know your vision. If you don’t have a very clear vision, that’s okay, but be open to assets being a bit off from what you had expected. The designer can only know and activate on the details you explicitly provide. Sharing any inspiration (and why you like it) is also extremely important, especially if you don’t have a lot of visual assets.

It is always helpful for both parties if you can hone in on your vision for an asset or campaign and provide lots of details. From there, the designer will fill in the visual gaps based on your brand guidelines and design best practices.

Related: Free Creative Brief Templates for Video Ads

Maintain Close Communication on Results and Goals

You’ll need to stay in sync on what ad creative worked, what didn’t work, and why. Over-communication is better than under-communication, but we think we’ve struck the right balance. We meet with our partners every 2 weeks to discuss the past 2-weeks ad performance, creative wins, and how we’re tracking on goals. We also discuss new opportunities and strategize campaigns for the next 2-week period.

While you may think an adjustment to a goal regarding your creative strategy may be fairly obvious, your agency may have a totally different viewpoint. Make sure to speak these thoughts aloud so that they don’t fall through the cracks!

Your Next Agency for Ad Creative?

Try these 4 things to start getting perfect creative every time when working with an agency!

Need an agency? We can help you hit your goals faster with our high-volume creative testing strategy. Learn how!  ↓

 

Ad creative is the most important lever for growth when it comes to performance or growth marketing. Yet, time and again, marketers are held accountable for results without the resources they need to produce the high volume of high-quality ad creative to drive those results.

Can you imagine asking a salesperson to effectively sell without a sales deck or CRM? But that’s exactly what marketers in many organizations are faced with. Without an in-house design resource or a freelance designer available, they turn to Canva or another digital tool to quickly create the ads they need, resulting in ads that are not optimized for growth or not designed with the brand’s aesthetics in mind.

Today, digital marketing requires a high volume of ad creative to keep ad accounts fresh and to consistently find new winning ads. When you’re running this many ads, you need to produce ad creative in bulk. We’ll walk through why it’s important and how you can set yourself up for success when producing ad creative in bulk.

Why you need a lot of ad creative

In a world where nine out of 10 ads fail, it’s important to launch multiple ads at once. This approach allows you to quickly identify winners and scale them up so you can hit your goals. (For more on how we recommend launching and testing ads, read The Ultimate Guide to Outlier Method of Creative Testing.)

At Primer, we recommend a minimum of 50 ad tests per every $25,000 in ad spend to ensure you’re launching enough new ads to find a consistent stream of new winners. To find the exact number of ad tests (and failures) based on your CPA and ad spend, check out our Creative Testing ROI Calculator.

The key to this process, however, is consistency. Launching 50 new ads one time will help your ads that one time. To maintain sustainable growth, you need a creative testing framework that ensures that you are routinely planning, creating, launching and optimizing ads within your digital advertising accounts.

In this post, we’ll talk about the best way to create the high volume of ads you need for this framework, but here are a few other resources to help plan, launch and optimize your ads as well.

 

5 Steps to Produce a Lot of Ad Creative

Step 1: Determine how much ad creative you need

As a rule of thumb, we plan for 50 ad tests per every $25,000 in ad spend. Those 50 tests could include copy and audience tests, but the majority of your tests should be visual tests, including image ads and video ads.

At Primer, we aim to test one new batch of image ads and video ads every two weeks, with a minimum of 5-10 tests within each batch. Per the Outlier Method, we alternate between “big idea” ad tests, which test a brand-new concept, and iteration tests, which change just one or two elements of a winning ad.

Let’s pretend you are spending $25,000 each month in digital advertising. Here’s how we would plan your ad tests for one month.

Step 2: Create your testing roadmap

Now that you know how many tests you need for the month, you can begin to plan out your creative testing roadmap. At this stage, you are assigning concepts to each of these tests.

At Primer, we use Monday.com to plan and manage our testing roadmap, although any project management tool that allows you to track and collaborate on a project could work. Here’s a snapshot of our planning board we use with all of our partners to plan and manage our creative tests.

This central place for the testing roadmap helps us all stay on track and ensure that we’re working on our continuous creative pipeline to keep our partners’ ad accounts fresh and full of winning ads.

When brainstorming big ideas, focus on concepts that do any one (or a combination) of the following:

• Emphasizes a totally different value proposition than your past tests
• Targets a different audience (e.g. change what gender or age range you’re targeting)
• Uses a fresh visual look
• Includes all-new copy and headlines
• Is part of a larger, new “campaign” (e.g. ads that correspond with your brand’s current influencer campaign)

Make sure your ideas are grounded in your buyer personas. Once you determine your ideal buyer, you can then figure out what types of questions they would ask before purchasing.  (Tip: Use our easy buyer decision question worksheet to figure these out for your brand.)

These “buyer decision questions” should guide your copy, headlines, calls-to-action, and more.

An iteration is a variation of your previous top-performing ads (i.e., “wins”) in which you change one or two elements. By creating multiple iterations and testing those, you can thoughtfully scale your account’s wins.

By reusing key elements from past top-performing ads, you can also hone in on what really makes an ad work.

Plan out the next 2-3 months’ worth of tests at a time, assigning the concepts, deadlines, and owners to each test. Check out “What to test in your social media ads” for more ideas to fill out your testing roadmap.

Step 3: Dedicate consistent time to write your creative briefs

Now that you have your plan in place, it’s time to start writing your first creative briefs. Ad creative is the result of a creative process, hence the name. The best ad creative comes when you have time and headspace to dedicate to putting together a thoughtful and informed creative brief.

At Primer, we’ve developed a consistent weekly schedule for writing and submitting our creative briefs. We aim to write our briefs on Wednesdays and submit them on Fridays, giving us a day in between for review and revision. This kind of routine helps to ensure that we block out the time we need to write thoughtful briefs on an ongoing basis. Over time, it becomes a habit.

To help kick off your creative briefs, here are a few resources you might find helpful:

• Use the creative faucet method to get ideas flowing
• Steal from winning video ads with these 9 video ad templates
• Unblock writers’ block with these ad copy templates 
• Get your videos started with 101 video hooks

Step 4: Streamline the design and review process

Now comes the time to hand your ideas off to a designer for execution. If you are working with an in-house designer, it might be best to schedule a meeting with them to review your creative testing roadmap, the importance of it, and discuss the best way to get creative produced on a consistent basis. This can help them schedule it into their workflow and understand the priority from your perspective.

If you’re working with an outside freelance designer, you might want to collaborate in a project management tool like Monday.com, Asana, or JIRA to submit the requests and track the progress. With this many creative requests coming in, it can be challenging for both you and the designer to keep track of where you are in the process and also ensure you’re both referring to the same request when discussing them. A project management tool gives you a central place for that conversation.

An alternate option could be to hire an on-demand design service like Primer, No Limit Creatives or Sketchdeck. Unlike freelancers, these design services take time to understand your brand and provide specialized support based on the kind of creative you need. With this option, all project management takes place within their platform, and the accountability for delivering the creative you request is on them — helping you to fill your creative pipeline more seamlessly.

With whichever option you choose, ensure you have a smooth process for both requesting creative and reviewing it. Reviewing creative by email or Slack can easily result in feedback getting lost and end up in unnecessary rounds of revisions. Look for a review tool like Filestage or Ziflow to consolidate the review process or hire a freelancer or an on-demand design service that has an embedded review tool and process already in place.

Step 5: Repeat

The most important part of this process is also the hardest: repeat this every month. To keep your creative pipeline full, it’s important to repeat this process and stick to a consistent schedule. As you build your process and the resources you need to get it done, the easier it will be to consistently produce the ad creative you need to find sustainable growth in paid advertising.

Expand Your Team

If your company is investing thousands of dollars into growth marketing, consider expanding your team to help build the creative pipeline you need for it to work.

Primer offers growth-focused creative services ranging from on-demand ad creative you can get in as little as two days to full-service creative strategy and management. To find out how we can help you hit your growth goals with better ad creative, schedule a call today.

So you’re in the market for an online platform to get marketing creative designed for you. That’s what Primer is for. But naturally, there are similar options out there that do things a bit differently, serve a different type of company, and/or have a different price point. Let’s dig into how Primer On-Demand differs from one major competitor: No Limit Creatives.

Quick Summary

What are they and what are they for?

Primer On-Demand is a platform that allows you to get high-quality ad creative designed for conversion and produced by our creative team in 2 to 4 business days.

It is for building a continuous pipeline of conversion-focused creative for paid social ads.

No Limit Creatives is a platform that gives you access to their design team to produce a variety of marketing content in 1-4 business days. They have 4 different plans, but their “Graphic & Video” package is the only one that’s comparable to On-Demand.

Rather than serving a particular niche, it is for getting various types of marketing designs produced as needed. 

How Do They Work?

Both work in a similar way:

1. Request an unlimited amount of marketing designs directly through an online platform.
2. Get paired with the right designer for your unique request.
3. Receive your creative back in 1-4 days after it passes a quality assurance check. Request revisions if needed.

There are some differences. When requesting edits, Primer On-Demand provides an easy-to-use review studio within our platform where you can make markings and leave comments in specific places. It makes giving feedback a breeze – much better than only using words over email.

What’s Included? 

Primer On-Demand includes:

• Image Ads
  • Graphic Design
  • Custom Illustrations
• Video Ads
  • Videos (image compilations, UGC, etc.)
  • Custom Animations
• Fully hosted Landing Pages

What’s not included in Primer On-Demand?: 

• General marketing design that is not tied to a specific growth goal 
• Creative designed for physical applications (signage, presentations), including:
  • Print graphics
  • Logos
  • Branding

No Limit Creatives includes:

• Digital & Print Graphics
• Custom Illustrations
• Motion Graphics & Video
• Landing Pages
• Logos & Branding
• Amazon Listing Designs

What’s not included in No Limit Creatives?: 

• Creative that’s always designed for conversions

Since Primer’s specialty is growth and the biggest growth lever is ad creative, the types of designs we provide are always for the purpose of getting conversions.

Price:

No Limit Creatives: Approximately $949 per month

Since No Limit Creatives serves all marketing creative needs, the lower cost is offset with the lack of specialty. This is good for companies that are okay with having generalist designers rather than growth-focused designers, and want the ease of having a one-stop-shop for their design needs.

Primer On-Demand: $3,400 per month 

Serving a different purpose, Primer On-Demand is the premium option for companies focused on generating revenue from high-quality ads produced by specialized graphic designers, video designers, and landing page designers, with an average rating of 4.9/5 stars.

Key Differentiators

No Limit Creatives’ key differentiators are:

• All your marketing design needs in one place, produced by one team
• Lower monthly price

Key differentiators for Primer On-Demand are:

• High-quality creative: Only 1.1 rounds of revision on average and 4.9/5 stars 
• Conversion-focused ad creative produced by growth marketing designers

Ideal Customers

No Limit Creatives is best: 

• if you have a lot of general marketing content needs and not enough graphic designers.
• if you can spend extra time in multiple rounds of revisions since the design team is not specialized in any single type of marketing niche.
• if your priority is ease and convenience amongst all marketing team members and you need all creative to come from one place.

Primer is best:

• If you are prioritizing growth marketing and don’t have enough graphic designers.
• If you’re a time-pressed growth marketer that expects top-notch ad creative on the first round of revisions.
• if your priority is ad creative that’s designed to convert.

The Verdict

So which one is better? It depends on your priority and bandwidth.

Companies that need high-quality, growth-focused creative with fewer revisions should go with Primer On-Demand, whereas companies that have various content needs and more time to spend in review stages may find No Limit Creatives to be the better option. 

Ready for More Ad Creative?

Start getting more high-quality ad creative today. Learn more about Primer On-Demand and how to get started here.

It’s not just a good idea to test your ads. It’s essential. 9 out of 10 ads fail, so you always have to try different things, learn what works, and iterate. The surest pathway to growth is testing your ad creative quickly and in bulk. 

But it is a big investment. You’ll need a lot of creative, a lot of bandwidth, and a lot of ad spend. Thankfully, the return on investment (ROI) is incredible. We’ve had partners save millions of dollars in months.

Keep reading to learn why testing your ads is worth it.

Rapid-Fire Creative Testing

Companies looking to grow fast need more than just slow A/B testing. In this world of new algorithms and zero-party data, how quickly you move makes all the difference. 

But how do you know what to test? Or how often to do it? Or what’s worth scaling? Or when to pause a bad performer?

You know the struggle. So we made the perfect solution: the Outlier Method of testing. We use it for all of our partners to test their copy, images, gifs, videos, video hooks, thumbnails, landing pages, headlines, CTAs, and audience. You name it, you should test it. Here’s how it works:

For more on the Outlier Method, including recommended budget and timelines, download the cheat sheet here.

Your Investment

If you decide to follow the Outlier Method, your investment isn’t just the ad spend. It’s the money it takes to pay the designers creating the ads and the marketers managing the campaigns. It’s not just a monetary investment, either. It’s also the bandwidth to constantly come up with new ideas for tests, stay up to date on best practices, keep up with algorithms, etc. 

How this is broken up will vary from company to company, but essentially, every company will invest these two things:

• The overhead, time, and bandwidth it takes to launch a given number of ad tests
• A certain budget for ad spend

In our ROI calculator, you can see exactly how many ad tests you should be running with your ad spend. You’ll also be able to see how many of those tests will fail (it’s probably more than you think) and how many will win.

Your Return

Here’s the good part: your return. Is all of that investment worth it? Spoiler: of course it is!

One way to calculate your ROI would be your percent increase in purchases as well as your savings, which both take into account the impact that rapid-fire testing has on your CPA. We’ll assume your CPA without testing would stay consistent, and that your monthly ad spend will not change.

Increase in Purchases

While actual numbers will vary, we identified an average trend in how CPAs decrease for our partners over time. You can see your projected CPAs for your first six months of rapid-fire testing in our ROI calculator.

You’ll also see that as your CPAs decrease, of course the number of purchases you can accommodate on your same monthly budget will increase. We’ll assume that without testing, your number of purchases would stay the same.

The percent increase in total purchases varies depending on your starting CPA and the number of ad tests you’re running, which depends on your monthly budget. Find out yours on the calculator.

For some (potentially mind-blowing) context, one of our partners increased purchases from ads by about 53% in just two months, and 89% in 6 months. Not too shabby!

Related: View our case studies

Total Savings

The way we calculate your savings is by first taking the total number of purchases we’d expect you to have after your first year of rapid-fire testing and multiplying it by your current CPA. This would show us how much the same number of purchases would cost you if you didn’t do rapid-fire testing.

We then take that number and subtract your annual ad spend to show how much money rapid-fire testing would save you.

One of our partners had savings of about $240K in the first 2 months, and $1.07 Million in 6 months, compared to if they kept the same CPA.

How Is This Possible?

While many companies hire growth marketing agencies, others are able to handle the investment with some internal changes. Others might do a combination of the two: keeping the ad management in-house but outsourcing the creative production. 

We’re here to help! To get unlimited creative designed to convert, get started now with Primer On-Demand. To have it all done for you, click the button below to schedule a growth consultation today.