When you hire Primer, you don’t just get a growth marketing agency. You get an extension of your team. We consider our agency clients “partners” because your goals become our goals and we work closely to achieve them together.

The testing methodology we rely on for your growth requires quick action, close management, and a lot of creative, which requires a full team. That’s why each agency partner doesn’t just get one marketing manager, they get an entire Primer team that’s dedicated to their success.

Here are all the new team members you get when you hire Primer:

 

Vice President of Paid Media

The Vice President of Paid Media on your Primer team oversees all your marketing efforts and long term business goals and needs. This person works with you to establish a forward-vision of where you need your business to go and how ad campaigns can help you get there. With your vision defined, they will then work with the Director of Paid Media to strategize more immediate needs on an ongoing basis to ensure we reach your long term goals.

Director of Paid Media

You’ll have a Director of Paid Media overseeing your account strategy along with immediate business needs. This person is invaluable as he or she can provide an immense amount of insight into the direction you could take with your ad strategy. The Director has eyes and ears into a wide range of businesses, constantly learning from what is or is not working, and applying those insights to help you win.

 

Growth Marketing Manager

In addition to the Director, you will meet with your  Growth Marketing Manager every week to discuss performance, insights, and goals. Your Manager handles the execution of the immediate marketing strategy that you determined with the Director of Paid Media. The two of them will be your closest team members at Primer. The Growth Marketing Manager works closely with the Creative Strategist to execute on your immediate goals.

Creative Strategist

The Creative Strategist will help translate higher level goals into specific creative assets, taking into account current trends in footage, text, audio, music, etc., and optimizing for all the different ad platforms and mediums. They will create a strategy for the creative of a campaign, put together thorough creative briefs, and assign the designs out to our team of graphic designers, video editors, or landing page designers.

 

Graphic Designers, Video Editors, and Landing Page Designers

At Primer, we know the pathway to growth is great creative and a lot of it. With the creative we produce for partners held to very high standards, you can be sure that you’re getting high-quality creative in a short turnaround time from top-notch designers. With our partnership relying so strongly on creative, the design team you get has been rigorously vetted. Our designers and editors have decades of experience, degrees from design institutions, and/or have held employment at leading brands. To learn more about the design team, check out The Team Members You Get with Primer On-Demand.

 

Creative Director

This person is the final gatekeeper on your ad creative, ensuring that what we’ve produced for you is on-brand and performance-driven. As an extension of your team, your Creative Director knows your brand guidelines inside and out and oversees the brand identity, look, and feel of every single asset. Every design goes through a quality assurance check by the Creative Director before being delivered to you for review.

Ready to Expand Your Growth Marketing Team?

Consider Primer as your centralized growth marketing team. With an agency team of over 6 people dedicated to the success and growth of your accounts, you can be sure that you’ll be poised for growth far quicker than going solo.

“We really depend on Primer as an extension of our team. Their strategic input and deep knowledge in direct marketing is essential to our growth.” – Zach Phillips, Co-Founder of Nom Nom

If you’re ready to expand your team, 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.

A few weeks ago, Primer On-Demand had its public beta launch. Primer On-Demand is a platform that allows you to get high-quality creative assets designed for conversion and produced by our creative team in 2 to 4 business days. We’re excited to share our first external product update!

Here’s a look at some updates we made to make Primer easier than ever for you.

Introducing The New Dashboard — With In-Primer Messaging and the Activity Feed

Recent Activity Feed

Previously, customers would only receive emails about the status of their creative requests, any lingering tasks they have, or questions from our team. Then we realized – you need to be able to see all of your Primer updates, tasks, and conversations in one place. This new dashboard puts some crucial workflows right at your fingertips:

• Message Board
• Your Tasks
• Activity Feed

Now you don’t have to switch back and forth between email and Primer to know what’s going on in your Primer projects. Let’s dive into each feature.

Messaging

Now you can message your Primer team with any questions , right from the dashboard.

Have a question about a request you’re putting together? Need a change to your required or optional reviewers? Want to communicate something to the Primer team, but not sure the best place? Send the team a message from the dashboard!

Recent Activity Feed

Quickly get up to speed with everything you, your team and Primer are doing within your Primer project. Click the › to go to the relevant item, or hover over the dot on the left to check the timing.

Your Tasks

In one glance, see if you have any outstanding reviews waiting for you. 

Comment Notifications

When a creative request is in the review stage, there are usually multiple reviewers. It can be hard to keep track of the comments that are added via email notifications, which is how it worked previously.

So we’ve added some in-app comment notifications so you always know when there are comments from teammates or Primer.

Click the bell to view the notifications. Click the › to see the comments. You can also mark notifications read individually or mark all as read.

We even added comment counts and a subtle red dot to indicate you have unread comments on a request. This is helpful when viewing projects from the Creative Requests page.

Referral Thank You Gifts

Thanks to everyone who has shared Primer On-Demand and/or Agency with their friends and colleagues. We really appreciate all the kind words. 

We’d like to send both you and our new partners thank you gifts for the referral. Your Primer rep should already be in contact, but please reach out if you haven’t heard yet or are interested in sending referrals soon!

Thanks For Reading!

If you’re interested in Primer On-Demand, click here to learn more and get started. 

Already a customer and want to send your feedback or ideas for improvement? Let us know by emailing brady@goprimer.com.

If you’ve heard about Primer On-Demand and/or the testing methodology we use to run our partner’s ads, you might be wondering, “is this an agency or a product?”

The answer: both!

At Primer, the name of the game is growth. That’s why we’re the go-to hypergrowth marketing company for brands that need to scale fast. But that can look a bit different to different companies depending on their needs.

Our agency partners and our internal creative and growth teams all use the Primer platform to manage our partner’s ads, creative requests, and creative workflow. However, even companies that want to continue running their own ads can buy Primer On-Demand to get unlimited creative produced by our team.

Is Primer an Agency? 

Yes! On the agency side, we help brands grow fast through paid social advertising and top-notch ad creative. Primer started as an agency and has been in the business for almost 10 years.

When you test more, you win more. That’s why we test more than anyone to find the best images, videos, copy, audiences, and landing pages to continuously hit your growth goals on each individual channel. 

Our creative team designs creative assets tailor-made for growth, while our growth team manages your entire experimentation process to ensure you’re making the right moves with your ad spend. You can expect:

• Rapid-fire testing
• Custom landing pages
• Continuous pipeline of ads
• Full-service account management

All you do is sit back and enjoy the wins, like these happy clients (view case studies).

Is Primer a Product?

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

The biggest growth lever is ad creative, so companies interested in growing fast need a lot of great creative to test. Unfortunately, it’s hard to build a continuous pipeline of high-quality assets in house. So, we built Primer On-Demand.

Primer On-Demand was initially used to simplify the creative workflow between us and our partners, while also simplifying the ad management process by bringing it directly into the app. But now, all companies can use Primer On-Demand to build their creative pipeline (even those that want to keep their ad management in-house)!

Brands love it because they can make unlimited requests for creative assets that are focused on conversions, whether images, videos, or landing pages, and get them back fast. They can then easily make edit requests if needed and get final deliverables all within the app.

Learn more about Primer On-Demand.

Interested in the agency or product?

Whether you want to grow fast with our agency’s rapid-testing process or get a constant flow of creative that’s designed to convert, Primer can help. 

Get started with Primer On-Demand here. To book a growth consultation for full-service management, click the button below.

We’re excited to announce the public beta release of our platform, Primer On-Demand, starting today! Get access to our top-notch creative team whose core focus is making ad creative that converts. Under development for the past two years and in testing since January 2022, we’re taking the platform, rated 4.9 stars, public with new features and improvements. Growth marketers everywhere can now use Primer On-Demand!
Keep reading to learn how it will provide you with conversion-focused ad creative that will help you grow fast while making your creative workflow a breeze.

What is Primer On-Demand?

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

What we learned from years of running millions of dollars in ad spend: the biggest growth lever is ad creative. Fast-growing companies need better creative, and they need more of it. But it’s hard to build a continuous pipeline of high-quality assets.

Within Primer On-Demand, you can submit unlimited requests for creative assets that are focused on conversions, whether images, videos, or landing pages, and get them back fast. With your feedback, we’ll revise it until it’s right. But that may not be necessary – on average, On-Demand customers approve an asset in only 1.1 rounds of revision. Ultimately, Primer is the platform to build a continuous pipeline of high-quality creative.

Here’s how it works:

Join for a monthly fee (no contracts required!) and make a creative request.

Our design team fulfills your request within 2-4 business days.

You provide feedback exactly how and where you want it.

We design it using our best practices in growth marketing it and email you when it’s ready for feedback.

And email once again when all of your stakeholders have approved it.

You can access this asset (along with all your other finalized assets) anytime in your Creative Library.The best part: unlimited requests for the same monthly price!

What do we mean by beta?

This beta release of Primer On-Demand is a work in progress that’s dependent on your feedback. Conversations with our beta customers are pivotal in helping us to improve the product for your needs. Though currently rated 4.9 out of 5 stars, we hope to make it better and better for growth marketing teams before a bigger launch later this year.

You can provide feedback directly within the app or by sending an email to our co-founder Brady at brady@goprimer.com.

Ready to get started?

Learn more about Primer On-Demand, get access to the demo, and start a tutorial here.

 

With a looming recession making headlines, many companies are hyper-concerned about their growth coming to a halt and revenue flatlining. If that’s the case for you, you might be faced with two conflicting tasks:

• Reduce spend 💲
• Increase revenue💰

You’re trying to save money and make money, and that’s exactly why you need to run more ads. Thankfully, launching many controlled ad tests will help you to reduce your CPA and increase revenue exponentially in a short amount of time.

Reduce CPA by 1.6x in just 2 months

Here’s a real CPA trajectory of one of our partners that increased the amount of ads they were running:

Monthly ad spend: Approximately $200k

The result?

👉 Savings of about $240K in the first 2 months, and $1.07 Million in 6 months, compared to if they kept the same CPA.

👉 Increased purchases from ads by about 53% in just two months, and 89% in 6 months.

Related: View our case studies

Here’s how we did it (and how you can, too)

We call it the Outlier Method:

 

1. Launch a new big idea ad set.
2. Pause ads that are underperforming.
3. Increase budget to your wins (A.K.A. “outliers”) and pause everything else.
4. Scale wins by creating at least 3 iterations each.
   1. Tip: Only change 1 or 2 elements per ad.
5. Iterate on your winning iterations.

Finally, repeat the whole cycle with a brand new big idea ad set. But you have to move quickly.

The key to saving money: act quickly

When it comes to pausing and scaling, don’t wait for statistical significance. By that point, you’re wasting money on underperforming ads and the opportunity cost of scaling your wins. Here’s what your timeline should look like:

• Start pausing underperforming ads within 24 hours
• Find and move budget to the outliers by day 3
• Start making creative iterations of your outliers to launch ASAP
• The Outlier Method should be completed within 1-2 weeks for each big idea
• At least 2 big ideas launched each month

The key to ad performance: great creative, and lots of it

Ready to launch more ads to reduce your CPA? You’ll need a lot of great creative. For each big idea, you’ll need about 20 creative assets. When scaling the wins, you’ll need about 20 more. If done twice a month, you’ll need about 80 creative assets per month. If this seems out of reach for you, we can help, just like we helped our partner above.

Your Growth Partner

Need high-quality ad creative fast? Use Primer’s on-demand online platform to get videos, images and landing pages produced by top marketing designers.

If you’re looking for help scaling and testing your ads, you’ve come to the right place. We’ll handle it all for you – the creative strategy, design, production, reporting, and media buying. You just enjoy the wins.

The Creative Exchange allows brands like yours to use our video ad expertise to grow quickly on the platform.

Every single one of our partners that we’ve worked with on TikTok has been featured in TikTok’s Top Ads, their library of top-performing ad creative. This achievement has garnered us a spot as one of the top agencies on TikTok, even giving us access to unique beta opportunities.

100% of the partners we’ve worked with on TikTok have been featured in TikTok’s Top Ads.

Do you want to be featured, too? If you’re a direct-to-consumer brand needing to hit growth goals, we may be a perfect fit.

“Our unique method works extremely well on TikTok,” said Primer CEO and Co-Founder, Kamo Asatryan. “We take formulas that have proven to work across multiple partners and platforms and create a version that is native to TikTok. The results have been incredible.”

 

A Must-Have For B2C Brands

As TikTok’s influence as an e-commerce engine grows, advertisers are finding huge opportunities to tap into a highly engaged audience of shoppers. A recent study from Insider Intelligence found that 71% of TikTok users worldwide shop when they stumble across something in their feed, stories, or other content.

“Right now, TikTok is one of the most powerful platforms for advertisers, combining the two most successful marketing tactics of 2021 and 2022: short-form video and UGC content. Any DTC brand would be remiss not to invest in TikTok,” said Primer COO and Co-Founder Brady Flynn.

More TikTok resources

Looking to amp up your ad creative yourself?

• 7 things you can try that get our partners on TikTok Top Ads 🔝
• 9 ways to create outstanding video ads that convert [Free Templates + Examples]

Not on TikTok quite yet?

• How to Get Started with TikTok Ads: The 2022 Guide 🤓
• 7 Reasons Your Company Needs TikTok Ads

Curious how you can better leverage TikTok?

Like the sound of all this? Schedule a call with us to learn how we’ve gotten our partners on TikTok ads, and how we’d hope to do it for you, too.

 

 

To Primer Friends and Partners: 

As marketers, we find ourselves again in uncertain times. The recent tumult of the financial markets, increased inflation, and a long road ahead to economic recovery have many of us reconsidering our marketing strategies. 

Sequoia Capital called this a “Crucible Moment” in their recent “Adapting to Endure” presentation. “We must recognize the changing environment and shift our mindset to respond with intention rather than regret.”

At Primer, we have a close eye on these macroeconomic impacts across our entire portfolio of partners – spending $10s of millions across Facebook, TikTok, Snap, Google, Pinterest, YouTube, and more. 

We have seen some partners adjust their budgets and others double down. If you’re not sure which changes to implement, you’re not alone. As your partner in growth, we would like to share what we’re seeing in the media marketplace today. 

Here’s some good news: it’s encouraging.

Reduced competition is driving low CPAs  

The brands that have pulled back are leaving opportunities for those that choose to invest in ads and marketing right now. 

The first five months of 2022 were more expensive in paid social than 2021, but that trend has recently reversed. 

Blended CPAs across our partners have decreased 45% since January. For the month of July, CPAs are 27% lower than in 2021.

CPAs are the lowest of the year

CPMs are also down — 25% lower since January 2022 and 21% down in July, compared to July 2021.

CPMs lower year over year

This is a great time to test and learn 

These lower costs can make up for any drop in conversion you may be seeing as a result of reduced demand. With lower costs, learnings are more affordable, and you can emerge from this economic downturn with winning ads that are ready to scale when you are. 

Our advice is to consistently run tests to find new winners that can be easily scaled when demand returns. You’ll be there for an incredible intersection of cheap CPAs and a spike in demand (similar to the surge in 2020).

Stay agile. Stay connected. You will succeed. 

Similar to our advice at the very beginning of the pandemic, we still believe these keys to success will guide you through these times. 

1. Have empathy for your customers. Show them you care and understand their needs by speaking directly to their most important questions about your product.
2. CPAs are the lowest they’ve been since early pandemic days. Utilize opportunity.
3. Demand for home delivery and digital experiences has held strong. Acquire a huge generation of lifelong customers who remember you for making their lives easier during tumultuous times.
4. UGC is what users are responding to these days. Test native-style ads featuring “real people” showing how they can benefit from your product.
5. Stay informed. Stay agile.

We’re here to help 

We believe that thoughtful testing, rich ad creative, and intentional investments will lead to growth that will endure these ever-changing times. It worked for our partners through the pandemic, and we’re here to help you through whatever comes our way next.

Whether that’s through full-service, hands-on management of your paid media or by providing high-quality ad creative on-demand, our team is ready to help you find ways to test more and win more.

 

It takes a lot to keep a paid social account performing these days. While budget, audiences, and account strategy can all have an impact, the biggest driver of success (or failure) is your ad creative. And the secret to having winning ad creative is to test a lot of it.

There are several ways to test your social media ads, making it hard to strike the right balance between launching new “big idea” ads vs. small tweaks, or iterations, of those big ideas. Thankfully, we’ve found a method that helps us find winning ads fast. We call it the Outlier Method.

 

The Outlier Method

At Primer, we have a simple, four-step approach for our creative tests that allows us to launch dozens or even hundreds of high-quality ads per month:

1. LAUNCH: Ideate and launch “big idea” ads based on key questions buyers have. (Get our step by step guide on ad testing here.)
2. WIN: Pause underperforming ads and determine the ads that beat the account average and become top performers — the “wins”  — we call these the Outliers. 
3. SCALE: Scale the budget for the “wins” and make creative iterations on them for your next test. 
4. REPEAT: Periodically start a new “big idea” process and repeat steps 1-3. We do this 1-2 times per month for our partners. 

With this method, it is easy to launch dozens or even hundreds of ads per month. In this article, we’ll define big ideas and iterations, explain why they’re important, and show you how to leverage both for your social media advertising.

 

Step 1: LAUNCH

What is a “big idea” in advertising?

In social media advertising, a big idea is a brand new idea, theme, or creative style. Generally, for every big idea, you should create 3-10 ads and launch them into one combined “big idea test.” This is also sometimes called research and development, or R&D, testing.

How to create big ideas in paid social 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.

Resources for creating high-quality ad creative that converts

When you create new paid social creative, you have the opportunity to try a new style or new content for any of the following ad elements. Below, we’ve linked to a few of our free templates so you can hit the ground running sooner: 

• Copy
• Static Imagery
• Image Headlines
• Facebook and Instagram Videos
• TikTok Videos
• Calls to action (CTAs) — See a full list of Facebook calls-to-action and a full list of TikTok calls-to-action 
• Headline — This is usually a compelling value prop framed as a next step (e.g. Get 15% Off Now)
• Video thumbnails
• Landing pages

An example of a big idea test

For our partner, Farmstead, we wanted to test an idea that visually shows how much value a customer would get by using Farmstead’s grocery delivery service. For this test, we created 9 images and GIFs, each taking a slightly different approach to the concept.

 

Step 2: WIN 

What is a win?

Within 48 to 72 hours after you launch, you should start making adjustments to the ads within your test. Quickly pause the ads that are underperforming in order to focus on the wins. (Don’t sleep on this – you don’t want to waste money on poor performers.)

Find the wins. A “win” is a top-performing ad that is a performance outlier. Wins should have better performance than your account average by at least 10%. They should also have at least 10 conversions.

After figuring out which ads for a test are wins, you can then move on to step 3: SCALE.

 

Step 3: SCALE

Now that you have identified your winners you can increase the ad spend to the wins and then start to scale. The fastest way to scale is to create at least 3 ad creative iterations on your winning ads

What is an iteration?

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.

For example, let’s say we have an ad with the same image but a bunch of different headlines.

 

If multiple versions of that ad (with those different headlines) perform, it’s likely that something about the main image is leading to increased conversions. 

Once you have a top performer, iterations can help refine performance. Over time, you’ll be able to combine multiple winning elements from different ads (say, one top performer’s headline and another’s image) into a new Franken-ad.

 

Since each element has been proven to work multiple times over, you should see even better performance when combining them all together.

Tip: For every win, create at least 3 iterations. Focus on changing 1 or 2 key aspects of the ads (see a full list of what to test below).

How to create good iterations

Ways to iterate on landing page wins:

• Change the header section at the top of the winning landing page. You can include a new header/hero image, new headline, and a new subhead 
• Include a different call-to-action on your buttons
• Swap sections of the landing page around
• If you have a testimonial section, change which testimonials are there
• Keep the copy the same but change the landing page’s images
• Test a longer or shorter version of the page
• Test out a different signup or purchase flow after your button click
• (If applicable) Swap which product you feature
• (If applicable) Change what audience you’re focusing on (e.g. a women-focused page vs. a man-focused page for clothing)

Ways to iterate on video wins:

Select one or two core elements to test and change within your winning video, such as:

• Different testimonials
• Different call-to-action
• Different first frame
• Different thumbnail
• Change the order of the sections within the video (e.g. swap order of price and UGC sections)
• Keep the captions the same but swap the background imagery for something new
• Keep everything the same but swap for a new color scheme

Ways to iterate on image or GIF wins:

Select one or two core elements to test and change within your image/GIF, such as:

• Keep the copy the same but change the main image
• Keep the main image the same but change the main headline
• Change the call-to-action
• Add animation if there is none
• Change animation to static
• Add or swap the background music
• Try the same image with a different color scheme

How we used the big idea and iteration process to scale Farmstead

Step 4: REPEAT 

Keep this process going. As you continue to find wins, iterate on those wins. Then, depending on your budget, you should also launch new big ideas 1 – 2 times per month. This continuous pipeline of new tests ensures that your ad account is never going stale and that you always have ads that can support more budget.

 

Ready to find some big wins? 

Altogether, this method significantly and rapidly expands both the number of ads you’ve launched and the advertising spend you’re putting towards proven top-performers. It allows you to spend with a clear strategy for growth rather than wasting money on a series of mediocre, big idea tests.

If you’re ready to try out our Outlier method, you can D.I.Y. with the help of our step-by-step guide to ad testing for paid social. In it, you’ll find out exactly how often to test, how many ads to test each month, and how to structure your creative testing.

If you’re looking for help scaling and testing your ads, you’ve come to the right place. We’ll handle it all for you – the creative strategy, design, production, reporting, and media buying. You just enjoy the wins.

Just need help producing the creative? Try our new Primer On-Demand platform and get access to a team of expert marketing designers. Make unlimited requests for images, videos and landing pages.

Book a consultation to get started.

Seeing examples of successful ads can help inspire you to create new creative that actually converts. In this post, we take a look at 10 image and video ads from Facebook, Instagram, and TikTok that made us click. We show you what they look like, break down why they work, and discuss how you can implement those principles for your brand.

Let’s dive into 10 compelling ads from food and beverage powerhouses like Daily Harvest, Hello Fresh, and Drizly:

TikTok Ads to Copy:

1. MUD/WTR | TikTok Video Ad

What they’re selling: a coffee alternative made from mushrooms.

Why the ad works:

• Sells a lifestyle. Rather than just a product, this video sells an entire lifestyle—idyllic, filled with wanderlust and beautiful sunsets, peaceful —with MUD/WTR at the center of it all.
• Emphasizes brand tone. The natural imagery underscores the brand’s desire to be connected with health and holistic wellness in contrast to its alternative, coffee, which is usually associated with city life and “the grind.”
• Shows the product in action. Demonstrates how easy it is to make a cup of MUD/WTR in step by step format.

 

2. Kencko | TikTok Video Ad

What they’re selling: powdered packets that rehydrate into a thick smoothie.

Why the ad works:

• Starts with a strong hook—”want a more nutritious way to start your morning?” This sets up the premise of the rest of the video and speaks to a key buyer decision question. See 101 more video hooks that will improve your ads.
• Displays flavor variety in the first frame. This can draw in people who may only like one or two smoothie flavors.
• Calls out key benefits, including daily servings of fruits and veggies, good taste, flavor variety, and easy to make.
• Shows the product in action. This makes it seem like anyone could use their product. It also highlights their proprietary blender bottle, which looks a bit different from the common ones on the market.
• Emphasizes sustainability. This is particularly important since it is a single-use product. Emphasizing its compostable packaging can help ease the minds of people worried about single-use plastic.
• Includes a clear CTA to tell viewers what to do next—“order yours at kencko.com.”

 

3. Daily Harvest | TikTok Video Ad

What they’re selling: a subscription to frozen smoothie mixes.

Why the ad works:

• Uses elements that look native to TikTok, including the “ask box.” This helps viewers engage more because it seems less like an ad interrupting their scrolling experience and more like…well, a TikTok.
• Shows the site and how to actually order a variety of flavors. This can help alleviate any anxieties about the subscription process by making it feel transparent.
• Highlights strong value propositions, including good taste, health benefits, and ease of use.
• Includes a clear CTA

Want to run TikTok ads like Daily Harvest? Learn how this hypergrowth company optimizes their TikTok ads, and how you can, too, in our free interactive teardown. We’ll break multiple ads down frame-by-frame and tell you why they work. (And some things Daily Harvest could improve.)

Facebook and Instagram Ads that We Clicked On:

4. Misfits Market | Facebook and Instagram Image Ad

What they’re selling: a food box that compiles less aesthetically-pleasing food that’s still good to eat.

Why the ad works:

• Shows a price comparison. This ad uses one of our favorite styles: “vs. competition.” Here, we see a picture of blackberries with two prices laid out—”ours” vs. “theirs.” Of course, “ours” is more affordable. This is a good way to simply and concisely showcase price comparisons.
• Uses strong headlines. The image headline and the copy headline both offer compelling commands: “Save up to 40% on groceries” and “Stop overpaying for groceries.” It’s nice that they convey the same value prop—saving money vs. the competition—in two different ways: if someone isn’t convinced to click by the image headline, they might be by the copy headline.
• Offers a secondary value prop in the description. What we can see of the headline before it is cut off introduces another reason to switch to Misfits Market: sustainability. It mentions fighting food waste and going green. While the headlines focus on saving the individual money, the description goes broader. This is a good example of a brand knowing its buyer personas and speaking to multiple levels of buyer questions.

 

5. Farmstead – Facebook and Instagram Carousel Ad

What they’re selling: free, local grocery delivery.

Why the ad works:

• Seamless carousel. For many accounts, carousels will work better than single static images because of the ability to highlight additional value propositions, the native feel (many popular Instagram posts are carousels), and, for Facebook, the variation from other posts on people’s feeds. For this ad, we chose to go the way of a “seamless carousel,” meaning each image interplays someway with the next. That way, the ad feels like a cohesive image instead of disconnected stills.
• Local call out. In the copy, we spoke directly to the local geography: “Hey Charlotte.” This helps scrollers feel like the ad is more relevant to them and reaffirms that any offers in the ad work for their area.
• Includes a testimonial. While the first two images focus on defining what Farmstead is and its benefits, the last frame relies on using a real user review as social proof. Including testimonials not only feels more real and casual but also shows that the product or service has worked for other people and will work for your new buyers, too.

Learn more about how we’ve used high-volume ad testing to grow Farmstead in our Farmstead Case Study.

6. HelloFresh – Facebook Stories Ad

What they’re selling: At-home meal kits.

Why the ad works:

• Includes a comparison to the competition. Remember how the Misfits Market ad relied on a price comparison to place themselves as better vs. the competition? In this ad, Hello Fresh uses both the number of meals and a visual of the plates to set themselves apart in  a larger, bright yellow section. This is a good template for brands who might want any comparisons to the competition to be secondary to their value props.
• Provides clear numbers. As part of the image headline and comparison text, we see concrete numbers: 6 meals vs. 3 meals; ready in 20 min or less. This makes the ad feel as if it’s backed by data, and thus, for many, more trustworthy. We also see a great, concrete price listed in the copy headline: “Start for just $3.99/meal!”
• Is a scroll-stopping bright color. The bright yellow stands out against other images on one’s feed.
• Uses emojis in the copy. Using emojis to help set off a list of value props is one of our tried-and-true methods for creating compelling, clickable ad copy. It’s icing on the cake that Hello Fresh also used emojis in the description, which helps separate it from the copy headline.

 

7. Drizly – Facebook and Instagram Image Ad

What they’re selling: Online liquor store and alcohol delivery.

Why the ad works:

• Shows the app (with prices). Seeing a screenshot of the app adds a trust factor to it. For selling a regulated product like alcohol, this is particularly important so that people know it’s a legitimate business. Even better, the screenshot shows a real price for a bottle of wine—at $11, helping to entice buyers who are also looking for a good deal on wines.
• Showcases a relatable lifestyle. This lifestyle photo presents a laid-back, social, warm-weather vibe: it’s outdoors, with a cute dog, presumably at a public park. It makes the ad more relatable while reinforcing that their app can be used to order alcohol from anywhere.
• Uses simple copy that gets at the heart of what the brand is and why someone should order from them right now. What does Drizly provide? “The widest selection of drinks delivered in under 60 minutes.” And why is now the best time to order? Aside from it being summer, you can “get free delivery on your first order” with their code. Then, they provide a bunch of scannable emojis that make it clear to a quick scroller what the company sells. I only wish that the copy headline included more of a command/call-to-action instead of only a description of the product (e.g. “Get Alcohol Delivered for Free in 60 min.” vs. the current “60 min. Alcohol Delivery”)

Read more about how Drizly is winning on Facebook in our free Drizly Teardown.

 

8. ALOHA – Facebook Image Ad

What they’re selling: plant-based protein bars.

Why the ad works:

• Tells a story. The copy of this ad walks the viewer through a sensory visualization. By telling a story about your audience purchasing your product, you can help make buyers understand how your brand can fit into their lives. In this instance, the sensory visualization also serves to highlight the mouth-watering flavors and ingredients of ALOHA’s newest bar.
• The map makes it feel local. By including a map sticker, the ad not answers an important question(Where can I buy ALOHA? At Whole Foods) but also, at first glance, makes it seem like a local product.
• Simple enough to understand at a glance. With just a quick glance, viewers can tell this ad is introducing a new flavor of ALOHA bar. This ad would work particularly well in a remarketing campaign: the new flavor might interest past purchasers, or it might convince people who have seen the brand before to now convert.

 

9. Huel – Facebook Image Ad

What they’re selling: Nutritionally complete grab-and-go meals.

Why the ad works:

• Detailed comparison. Although similar to the “vs. the competition” ads above, this Huel ad has a slightly different take—we’ll call it “vs. alternative.” In it, we see the Huel product being compared to a worse alternative.
• Backs up comparison with numbers. Facts and stats lend credibility to products. In this instance, the protein and Vitamin C comparison indicates that Huel has the proof to support their claim.
• Clear, concise headline. This ad uses the same headline both on the image and in the copy headline spot: “All the Nutrients You Need. 1 Meal.” It clearly tells the viewer what Huel is and the most important benefit of it (complete nutrition).
• Refutes a common buyer claim and presents Huel as a solution. Huel mentions a common misconception (“I haven’t got the time to eat healthy”), then explains why it’s inaccurate and presents its product as the solution.

 

10. Daily Harvest – Facebook Image Ad

What they’re selling: a subscription to frozen smoothie mixes.

Why the ad works:

• It’s seasonal. Daily Harvest has chosen to showcase tropical ingredients in the image and call out the current season in their copy: “It’s 365 days of summer (in a smoothie).” It’s always great to paint a picture for the buyer that shows how easily a product or brand can fit into their ideal aesthetic.
• It highlights the discount up front. We see the discount in two places: the caption and the headline text. Both are worded slightly differently (“Save up to $40 on your first box” vs. “Get $40 OFF First Order for Limited Time”). The image and the first part of the caption copy seek to answer the question “why buy Daily Harvest?” while the headline brings urgency: why buy Daily Harvest right now?
• Includes a texture shot. Thanks, in large part, to the rise of beauty influencers, the texture shot feels super native to Instagram and Facebook. Here, Daily Harvest shows it off with a nice “drip” of the smoothie off the side of the cup. This little “imperfection” feels more authentic than a perfect image, and it contributes to an aesthetic sense of mouthwatering goodness.

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As we’ve seen in these 10 clickable Facebook and TikTok ads, there are many reasons why an ad would appeal to your audience. That’s why it’s important to test variations of each key component, including the image, headline, copy, and call-to-action.

No matter your audience, your ads should achieve three things:

• 1. answer common questions that your buyers have
• 2. present your product as the best solution to a problem
• 3. be visually scroll-stopping

Learn more about composing ads that convert in our templates and guides:

• How to write a buyer persona and develop buyer decision questions (and why they’re important)
• 25+ Ways to write ad copy (and why they work) [Templates + Examples]
• 9 Outstanding video ad templates that convert

 

Need help creating enough compelling ad creative to kick your growth into high gear? Primer On-Demand is an online ad platform that delivers videos, images, and landing pages produced by top marketing designers who know what converts.

When you sign up for Primer On-Demand, you’ll get access to 10+ frame-by-frame templates for image ads, video ads, and landing pages. And you’ll be able to request an unlimited number of ad designs from our team.