For performance marketers, finding inspiration to keep your creative pipeline full with video ads that keep pace with top-performing ads by your competitors and take advantage of rapidly evolving marketing trends is a constant effort.
Chances are that you’re already using the Facebook Ad Library and others to gain insights into ad trends across industries and brands on platforms like Facebook, Instagram, and TikTok.
But are you getting the most out of these ad libraries?
When used right, the Facebook Ad Library and others help you keep your swipe file up to date and stay one step ahead of the competition with ads that drive conversions.
For instance, did you know that with the Facebook Ad Library you can search ads by keyword or by a specific advertiser to reveal critical details like how long an ad has been running, who paid for the ad, and who the ad is targeting?
We believe that great marketers steal. It’s the idea that you should find something that works and make it your own. If you do it well, then it becomes yours.
There’s no need to reinvent the wheel when great advertising themes and templates like those we’ve developed at Primer have been proven to work time and time again.
Trends can change rapidly, and marketers often draw inspiration from one another to figure out what works and is successful in the current market.
Ad libraries are a great way to gain inspiration from what other brands are doing and find out what ads are performing and what ads are not.
Social media companies like Facebook and TikTok aren’t the only ones offering these crucial tools.
We developed our own ad library of high-converting ads across Facebook, TikTok, Instagram, and more. By using our ad library, you can discover ad themes to create effective ads for your brand, keep your creative pipeline full, and drive ROI.
Here’s why an ad library might just be your performance marketing secret weapon.
3 Reasons an Ad Library Is Your Secret Weapon
Reason 1: Foster Creativity
An ad library is the perfect source for drawing inspiration from existing ads across social platforms.
These ads can help inspire unique and innovative ideas for your brand.
Not only can you brainstorm based on what works for similar brands, but you can even get creative inspiration from brands you admire in completely different industries!
Through our research testing thousands of ads across different social media channels, we found that themes and templates (like “how it works” or “vs. the alternative”) are industry agnostic and can work for any brand in any industry.
Reason 2: Know What Works
Using an ad library lets you find and target ad themes and templates you know perform well—and then incorporate top-performing elements of winning ads that use those themes and templates into your ads.
Ad libraries help you learn about successful campaigns that drive conversions. Once you identify these campaigns, you can easily compare them to find the best styles and approaches.
Not only can you learn what resonates with your specific target audience, but you can keep up with broader trends and stay one step ahead of the competition.
Reason 3: Build Your Swipe File
Sometimes when inspiration comes up short, great marketers turn to their swipe file—marketing materials they’ve gathered over time that have already proven successful, to help get the creative juices flowing when creating their own original campaigns.
Some common reasons to add something to your swipe file include:
- A strong hook, CTA, or both
- Creative use of native platform elements like sound, text, and UGC
- Effective for a specific platform you’re targeting
- Ads that fit a certain aspect ratio
- Ads with a specific theme or “big idea” you want to use for your ads
An ad library can help you collect great examples of ads that convert by giving you access to thousands of ads across advertisers and industries, targeting a variety of audiences.
Easily search and locate ads that match what performs well with your target audience and file them away for future inspiration.
Use these ads you know win to inform your future campaigns.
Find the Right Ad Library
Facebook, TikTok, and now Primer all offer ad libraries that can help performance marketers find ad formulas that work every time.
Here’s what you should know.
Facebook Ad Library
Facebook is the original, de facto ad library for social media ads across its advertising channels.
To add more transparency, Facebook designed its ad library to share every ad running on Facebook for a brand. These ads are compiled and shared in a searchable database.
They don’t include any stats or discussion of if the ad is performing. However, top performers will likely be left running for longer, meaning the brand is willing to invest more in ad spend to keep it visible on the platform.
You can filter by country and ad category along with your search term (keyword or brand).
Categories for users in the U.S. include issues, elections or politics; housing; employment; and credit.
You can then refine your search using built-in filters for categories such as whether the ad is an image, meme, or video, the platform used, whether the ad is currently active, and how many impressions the ad has had at the time of the search.
Tip: Try searching for a specific competitor of your brand to see what they are doing.
Example: Sunday Lawn Care
Tip: You can also try searching by a general product category.
Example: Lawn Care Products
TikTok Ad Library
TikTok provides users with a searchable ad library as well. However, TikTok only shares high-performing ads.
This takes a lot of the legwork out of the process for you, since you won’t be trying to deduce what works on the platform and what doesn’t on your own.
When searching the TikTok ad library, you can filter by location, industry, objective, likes, duration, and when it was shared.
Much like the Facebook ad library, you can search TikTok’s top performers according to a specific brand or by keyword.
Example: Rocksbox
Example: Jewelry
Primer’s Ad Library
After testing thousands of ads across the most popular paid social channels, our marketing experts have developed a one-of-a-kind library of our top-performing ads that we know will convert.
With our ad library, you can search through all Primer-created winning ads (using our proven templates and themes) to find inspiration for our TikTok, Facebook, and Instagram ads (and more!).
Primer lets you search by:
- Industry (such as DTC or Fashion & Apparel)
- Channel
- Aspect ratio (size)
- Our proven Primer-developed themes
- Tags
Here’s how to search by industry:
Or by theme:
Our ad library is easy to use and gives you access to examples of how to create ads that stop users’ scrolling in their tracks and maximize your brand’s growth.
You can share the examples you like with your team, and you can also request creative just like an ad directly from the library.
Want to use the template shown in the ad above? Check out our How It Works Template>>
Use Primer’s Ad Library to Inspire Your Next Ads
Search our Ad Library to get inspired!
While popular social media companies like Facebook and TikTok offer valuable insights into the competition and current ad trends, only Primer offers a unique ad library of ads we’ve personally tested and seen perform at the highest level.
Want support taking using that inspiration for your own ads? Simply turn any of the ads in the Primer Ad Library into a template to use for your brand through our online platform Primer On-Demand.
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.
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.
Every month at Primer, our team comes together for the cheekily named “Primees” to honor the top-performing ads. The awards were designed in the spirit of Dunder Mifflin’s Dundie’s but the comparison ends there. These winners are based on real performance (and not everyone wins). We do have fun, though. Themes range from “black tie” to “safari” and everything in between. Our team turns out (via Zoom), often in costume, to celebrate the big winners.
To wrap up the year, we took a look back at the top ads from our 2022 Primees. What emerged is a list of strong ads full of great trends you can apply to your ads today.
We encourage you to leverage these wins for your own ads (great marketers steal!) and apply the learnings to find your own Primee success story in 2023. Wishing you the very best ads.
Best UGC Video Ads
It’s no surprise that we have so many UGC video ads in this list of top-performers for 2022 — it was the top-performing ad format across all brands and channels. This first ad shows the power of performance UGC. While it doesn’t follow a typical influencer-style format where a single person addresses the camera, it tells a story from a single point of view, making you think it’s coming from a person’s own experience.
How you can try this: Capture an experience with your product on your phone, edit it down to the key moments, and add captions that describe each step your customer takes to solving their problem with your product.
Similar to the Sunday ad above, this Rocksbox ad shows the perspective of a single person, with unboxing-type shots to share a more personal experience with the jewelry subscription brand. The captions help reinforce the key selling points.
How you can try this: Shoot several short videos of your product with your phone. If it comes in a box, show it arriving and open it up to show potential customers what they can expect to get. Add captions that highlight the best features at each step.
This top-performing Ello video ad feels organic in a user’s feed with the audio of the Ello app and video of the child using the product. The captions grab attention and answer a key buying question (how much is it?).
How you can try this: Grab audio and video of your product in action. Play that in the background while captions tell the user how your product can help solve their problem.
For Prime Shrimp, we used an ad format that keeps winning: a vertical split screen. On the left we feature short copy that describes the simple steps for cooking Prime Shrimp. On the right, we have an ASMR video of that process in action, complete with clear audio of each action (rip of bag, boiling water, microwave buttons, etc.). The result is a salivating ad.
How you can try this: Create a vertical split screen ad like the one above. Communicate a key value proposition on the left, and show video of how that value proposition comes to life on the right. Try it with sound on! These top performers all have audio.
These next two ads follow a similar format: they both show you (the customer) how easy it is to go from shopping on your phone to using the product in your life. They both walk through the actual user experience and then show the product in action. The TeePublic ad went a step further and tapped into a cultural moment (Halloween) by tailoring the messaging to the holiday.
How you can try this: Grab a screen recording of ordering your product from your phone and combine it with video footage of the product in action. Add captions to describe each step and how this product will benefit your customer.
This ad taps into a TikTok trend that has expanded into Facebook and Instagram as well by starting with the POV caption. While the footage of the (albeit very exciting) product plays in the background, captions answer questions that the customer will need answered before making a purchase.
How you can try this: Hook your audience with a top trend within the first :03 of your video, then support footage of your production in action with key stats or information that answer the most important questions they need answered before making a purchase (e.g. how much is it, where can I get it, does it ship to me, etc.).
This UGC video ad features a single influencer and her use of the product, describing the three reasons (in this case, ingredients) that help solve her problem.
How you can try this: Use a single influencer to share three reasons why your product can help solve a problem.
Need help sourcing UGC video content? Primer now offers UGC on-demand. Our team can source influencers, develop the strategy and help produce the ads. Learn more here.
Best TikTok Ads
While we believe 2023 will be the year of TikTok, we saw massive growth and success on the platform in 2022. Not only did we create hundreds (thousands?) of ads for our partners on TikTok, we also created ads for TikTok itself.
This ad leaned heavily into the platform’s native styles and showed a playful take on shopping with the addicting cash register sound.
How you can try this: Embrace the native styles of the platform where you are advertising, including the text and the way the person is being featured in the video (in this case, a cropped shot of her head).
We created this ad for Little Passports through the TikTok Creative Exchange, and it quickly rose to become a TikTok Top Ad. Why? It visually walks the user through what they can expect from the product, showing screenshots of the purchase process (from a mobile device!) and examples of what you can expect to get from the box.
How you can try this: Similar to the UGC styles above, try walking through the purchase process in your video to show prospective customers what they can expect.
While this video ad doesn’t follow typical TikTok/UGC style, it still worked so well it was featured on TikTok Top Ads. Why? It is fast-paced, starts with an attention-grabbing hook, and combines brand footage with UGC footage of the app in use.
How you can try this: You don’t have to be a TikTok star to get a TikTok ad to perform. Just incorporate these key ingredients: attention-grabbing hook in the first :03 (here are 101 ideas for video hooks), fast-paced cuts between footage, and include sound on!
Best GIF Animation Ads
While GIF animation ads aren’t as high-converting as video ads, they can still be a powerful tool to help communicate a lot of information in a simpler format. This Apostrophe ad used the vertical split screen similar to the Prime Shrimp ad above to feature the personalized ingredient lists of its products. The mix of the different frames in the ad helped to drive home the point that Apostrophe is customized for your individual needs.
How you can try this: Use the vertical split screen to communicate key points on one side and show an image on the other side. Rotate through a few variations in a GIF animation to tell a story or show multiple scenarios for your product.
This ad leverages a winning headline with a combination of images of its clinics to further communicate the message.
How you can try this: Test a winning headline with a slideshow of images that help to reinforce the benefits.
Best Image Ads
In a world where everything is animated, sometimes a static image is what is needed to grab attention. These images did just that, while still communicating enough information to drive high conversions for our partners.
For Rocksbox, an image of jewelry combined with a press quote made for a powerful image. Once we found the win in August, we scaled it with a Halloween theme in October, resulting in huge performance.
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How you can try this: Combine an image of your product with a press or customer quote. Once you find a winner, scale it with elements that tie into the season or by testing different quotes or images.
This combination of a product shot, customer testimonial and callout has worked in several iterations for Feetures — simply communicating a lot of information in one attractive ad.
How you can try this: Try adding a sticker-type callout with a benefit or offer and mix it with a product image and testimonial. Keep testing different variations until you find a winner.
This static image directly addresses a major problem for the target audience (50+ tabs open… I feel ya!) and demonstrates how it solves the problem. The copy provides social proof, and the headline shares an offer. Everything you need for a conversion.
How you can try this: Set up a core problem for your customers in the headline and use your image to show how you solve that problem.
Best Comparison Ad
This GIF animation ad uses one of our tried-and-true themes: vs. the competition. In this case, we compare many of the features of Outer outdoor furniture to the alternative brands. The ad quickly highlights Outer’s key selling features and answers many of the potential customer’s questions.
How you can try this: break your product down into key features and compare each of them to the similar features of a competitor.
Best Carousel Ad
Carousel ads found a home among top performers in 2022, and this one led the pack. It follows our top-performing “buyer decision questions” theme, which asks and answers the most important questions a customer might have before buying your product. This carousel ad answers the questions in the form of testimonials, adding social proof to the messaging.
How you can try this: Start a carousel ad with a question your buyer might have about your product and answer it in the following slides. Design your slides to be continuous so that users get a peek at what is next and are encouraged to scroll through them.
Ready for 2023
We’re expecting big things next year, including more UGC and TikTok ads. If you need help finding creative wins, we’d love to talk. Primer is here to help you grow, whether that’s by providing on-demand ad creative when you need it most or by partnering with you as your full-service growth solution. Schedule a call to learn more.
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! ↓
When you hire Primer, you don’t just get a growth marketing agency. You get a full-stack growth marketing 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 growth marketing 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!
At Primer, running ad tests is our niche. It’s the best and fastest way to grow. But what exactly do we test for our agency partners? Here’s what we test on ads (and what we recommend you test, too)!
Test Images and Videos
The most important thing to test is ad creative. According to a Meta study, it’s the biggest lever for growth. Creative fatigue causes winning ads to go stale, so it’s important to test new ad creative so you have fresh winners before your current winners phase out
Even beyond that, you have to test to find the winning ads. You can test brand new big ideas, such as emphasizing different value propositions, calling out a specific audience in the creative (ex: Mom Hack #4), or just using a fresh visual look. You can also test smaller, more iterative changes, like video thumbnails or hooks and image headlines or color schemes.
For a full list of things to test for both big ideas and small iterations, check out: What To Test on Your Social Media Ads: Big Ideas vs. Small Iterations.
Test Ad Copy
While ad creative may be the biggest growth lever, high-quality copy can still be the difference between run-of-the-mill performance and massive wins. With ad copy tests, we make various:
- Headlines
- Description copy
- CTAs
However, we recommend only testing one at a time to see which one drives the biggest impact. For example, pair videos with description copy that’s only 1-2 lines long, testing multiple variations of the copy. Make sure to keep the headlines and CTAs the same on each variation to fully target the description copy.
Here are 25+ ways to write ad copy and why they work.
Test Landing Pages
Getting clicks on your ads is only half the battle. You need conversions. That’s where testing your landing pages comes in.
Landing pages have to sell fast since users will decide in seconds whether the product can solve their problems. Testing landing pages will allow you to find the best order, visual content, and written content to get the best conversion rates.
Make sure your landing pages speak directly to the customer, give specifics, address their problems and needs, and have actionable CTAs and scannable headlines.
Test Audiences
Audience testing is particularly strategic. The end goal is to have a plethora of audiences that have been tried and tested so you can find new copy and creative wins more quickly. In the same way that your audience will react differently to different creative, audience brainstorming is also ongoing and not always very straight-forward.
You’ll need to think critically about your persona’s problems and goals and the lifestyle, interests, choices, technologies, etc. that would lead to or are associated with these problems and goals.
Your findings from audience testing can then inform your copy and creative and vice versa. In some cases, your best audience’s common interests or qualities may not actually relate to your product at all. For example, maybe you sell cleaning products, and your best converting audience is Virgos. Be sure to think and test outside of the box!
Test More, Win More
By testing these 5 core elements, you’ll be poised for fast and strategic growth! But make sure you’re testing the right way. Now that you know what to test, download the Outlier Method to learn how.
No time to do all this testing yourself? That’s what we’re here for. Find out how you can start hitting your goals faster with our high-volume ad testing strategy. ↓
One of the main reasons people choose Primer On-Demand to design their creative assets is the speed, experience, and expertise of our team. We know the ins and outs of growth marketing and what works best for each platform. With Primer On-Demand, you get a team of top-notch designers that have decades of experience, degrees from design institutions, and/or have held employment at leading brands.
What you might not know is just how many other people you’re getting on your team. From project management to quality assurance, there are a number of behind-the-scenes roles that ensure you get the very best creative on time. Get to know your Primer On-Demand Team!
1. Your Account Manager
This is the person that sets you up for success. From day one, she reviews your account, brand assets, and helps you finish any lingering onboarding steps. Questions about your account will go through her.
Though we call her a Production Coordinator, you can think of her as your own personal Account Manager.
2. Your Project Manager
Once you submit a creative request, it goes to our Production Leads. You might never interact with them, but you can think of them as your own personal Project Managers. They review the details of your request, make sure we have everything we need from you, and ensure it’s done by your due date.
They assign your request based on the type of request and the best available designer for the job.
3. Video Editors
You have several video editors, graphic designers, and landing page developers at your disposal. They each have a unique blend of skill sets, specialties, and interests that impact who works on your video or other project.
With Primer On-Demand, you’re getting a team of video editors whose work has consistently been featured on TikTok’s Top Ads. Though all produce high-quality videos, the type of video you request will determine who it’s assigned to. Maybe you’re looking to stay up to date on a particular platform that one video editor is obsessed with. Maybe you’re looking for an emphasis on music, cool effects, or a certain aesthetic, such as clean, edgy, or native. We’ll find the best video editor for you.
4. Graphic Designers and Illustrators
Most customers come to us needing high-quality graphics for ad creative. Our team of top-notch graphic designers are trained in growth marketing and stay up to date on best practices. Again, the designer that works on your project depends on the type of request. Some of our designers are best for a certain aesthetic, others are great with trends, and others are best at creating illustrations for your image ads.
You’ll always get the best designer for the job.
5. Landing Page Designers
You’ll also have access to our landing page designers who are trained to build conversion-focused, on-brand landing pages within our proprietary landing page platform. While each designer can produce a high-performing landing page, we match designers to the requests based on the type of business, functionality required, and style of page.
6. Quality Assurance
Even though you’re getting some of the best designers out there, we still like to do a quality assurance check. Every creative request goes through an internal review before it’s submitted to you.
Expand Your Team
With Primer On-Demand, you’re expanding your team to include some of the best growth marketing designers. But even beyond that, you’re getting people dedicated to the success of your account, your projects, and the quality of your creative. If you’re ready to expand your team, click here to get started with Primer On-Demand.
So you’re in the market for an online platform to get ad 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.
Ad Creative Platform Comparison
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:
- Request an unlimited amount of marketing designs directly through an online platform.
- Get paired with the right designer for your unique request.
- 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 ad 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.