How to Improve Your Digital Ad Creative & Why It’s Important

In the ever-evolving landscape of digital advertising, creativity has emerged as a crucial differentiator for brands seeking to capture attention and drive engagement. Platforms like Meta (encompassing Facebook and Instagram) and Google stand at the forefront of this revolution.

As algorithms grow more sophisticated and user expectations rise, the need for innovative and compelling creative content has never been more pressing.

This article delves into why high-quality digital ad creative is becoming indispensable for effective advertising on Meta and Google, and explores best practices that will help brands’ advertising efforts yield maximum results.

Creative quality drives ad performance

Digital advertising platforms are placing greater emphasis on creative content. Research consistently confirms that creative quality is the dominant driver of ROI in digital media, with ads comprising high-quality visuals and engaging narratives tending to outperform their less creative counterparts by a significant margin.1

As part of this shift towards creative content, platforms like Meta and Google are prioritising ads that not only reach audiences but also engage them.

With Meta’s introduction of Advantage+ campaigns, the focus has moved from detailed targeting and structured personas to creative content and copy. Meta’s algorithm favours engaging, high-quality creative content. In fact, data reveals that 56% of all campaign outcomes are attributable to creatives, emphasising their role in determining bid prices and audience reach.

Meanwhile, for Google, the advent of PMAX campaigns highlights the importance of creative elements alongside traditional search and shopping ads.

Ultimately, for brands operating in the current landscape, the success of an advertising campaign hinges not only on the reach and frequency of ads, but on the quality of the creative content itself.

Strategies to improve digital ad creative

As you can see, improving the quality of digital ad creative should be a priority for any brand leveraging paid ads as part of their ecommerce marketing strategy. But how exactly do you improve your creative assets? This is what we’ll focus on in the next part of our article.

1. Follow platform best practices

As a minimum, it’s important to understand platform-specific nuances when it comes to creating digital ad creative. Familiarise yourself with any guidance published by the platform you’re advertising on, and ensure that any learnings are shared with your team and other professionals you may be collaborating with.

Meta

Meta’s Business Help Centre emphasises that a large budget or professional training aren’t necessary to create strong-performing creative. It includes various resources designed to help advertisers improve their digital ad creative on Facebook and Instagram, including tips like these:

• Add movement to your creative: Try GIFs, boomerangs and reels to grab attention in a user’s feed.
• Use calls-to-action (CTAs): Leverage CTA buttons to draw attention and encourage users to engage with your ad. Experiment with the different buttons available for different ad objectives and formats to see which ones are most effective.
• Consistency within carousels: When using Meta’s carousel format, ensure that you’re using images or videos that are cohesive (and ideally from the same shoot). This will look much more professional than random visuals, and will likely generate more engagement.
• Keep overlays scannable: Should you wish to add text to an image, ensure it doesn’t obstruct your visual. Meta recommends using a “modern, clean font in a large enough type size and a contrasting hue”.
• Humanise your creative: Use relatable, entertaining content and put a face to your business.

Google

Similarly, Google offers research-backed creative guidelines in the form of the ‘ABCD’ framework. This guidance is designed to help marketers create effective video ads on YouTube.

• Attention: Hook viewers and maintain their attention. Use bold, captivating visuals to create an attention-grabbing opening, with immersive storytelling and audio inputs to sustain engagement.
• Branding: Introduce your brand early and showcase your unique value proposition consistently throughout the video. Working your brand identity into your ad could involve the addition of product shots, in-situ branding, voice-overs or musical treatments, for example.
• Connection: Create emotional or intellectual engagement – help viewers think or feel something through storytelling techniques.
• Direction: Include a clear and compelling CTA that encourages your audience to act immediately. This could be communicated through a written, audio or visual instruction.

Learn more about Google’s ‘ABCD’ framework.

2. Understand your audience

Audience research is crucial for crafting relevant and engaging creative content. By leveraging data in Google Analytics and your advertising platforms, you can gather insights into your target demographics, using what you learn to define clear customer personas.

Make sure you’re clear on the motivations of your shoppers and the problem that your product solves. Identifying the emotional drivers behind purchases will help you to create compelling hooks for your campaigns and grab the attention of a new audience.

3. Use a hook, feature & benefit model

The hook, feature and benefit model for video creatives on social media is a great strategic approach to structuring content for maximised viewer engagement and conversion.

Here’s a summary of each component:

Hook

Purpose: Capture the viewer’s attention within the first few seconds.

How: Use striking visuals, intriguing questions or bold statements. The goal is to stop viewers from scrolling and get them interested in watching more.

Feature

Purpose: Highlight the key attributes or functionalities of the product or service.

How: Clearly present the product or service’s main features in a concise and visually appealing way. Explain what the product is and what it does.

Benefit

Purpose: Communicate the value or positive outcomes that the viewer will experience.

How: Focus on how the product or service can solve a problem, improve the viewer’s life, or provide specific advantages. This is where you connect emotionally with the viewer, showing the real-world impact of the product.

This model helps create cohesive and effective video content that not only engages viewers but also drives them towards a desired action, such as visiting a website or making a purchase.

4. Test & optimise

A/B testing different creative elements allows you to refine and improve your strategies over time. You can use metrics like hook rate and hold rate to assess ad performance and compare variants.

By implementing an iterative, data-driven cycle of testing and learning, you can enhance ad effectiveness and boost ROAS.

Note that Meta’s Advantage+ Shopping campaigns allow you to automatically test up to 150 creative combinations and deliver the highest performing ads.

Enhancing digital ad creative: Brand examples

Bouclème

Bouclème, an international hair care brand specialising in curly hair products, has leveraged a range of Swanky’s services for over two years. We began working with this brand on a Shopify design and development project and have since applied our growth services to help it scale at speed.

Our marketing services have continued to drive success by taking a full-funnel approach to increase both customer acquisition and retention.

Recently, Bouclème created a series of engaging videos using the strategies discussed above. They focused on relatable, entertaining narratives that resonated with their audience. You can see some screenshots of these below.

Examples of Bouclème’s high-impact digital ad creatives.

Results

These videos were part of a 360-degree marketing strategy and supported an average 24% reduction in cost per landing page view, rising to 54% for certain assets.

Moreover, a 164% increase in purchases was reported in the first three months of video use, compared to the previous period.

Natural Instinct

Natural Instinct, a premium pet food brand, initially partnered with Swanky to conduct a DTC and B2B migration from Magento Enterprise to Shopify. Since this site launch, the brand has leveraged our growth services to enhance its digital marketing.

We developed a comprehensive full-funnel campaign strategy, collaborating closely with the brand’s designers, to deliver a range of ads that aligned with their goals.

At the heart of this strategy was an Advantage+ campaign featuring a diverse mix of creative content, from static ads and carousels, to user-generated content (UGC) videos.

Examples of Natural Instinct’s improved digital ad creatives.

Results

In just 30 days, the campaign achieved an impressive ROAS of 32.59. The top-performing piece of content was a UGC video showcasing a family and the transformative benefits Natural Instinct has brought to their pet.

The success of this campaign can be attributed to the ongoing optimisation of creative assets. By continually testing new content and promptly pausing underperforming ads, our team ensures that only the best-performing pieces are live.

This data-driven approach not only keeps the campaign performing strongly, but also helps guide the creation of new content.

Improve your digital ad creative with Swanky

By investing in high-quality digital ad creative, brands can meet and exceed their marketing objectives, driving both short-term and long-term business success. In this competitive digital landscape, creative excellence is a necessity.

At Swanky, our paid advertising experts deliver best-in-class strategy and implementation. Our creative and social teams collaborate with a wide network of professionals to ensure your campaigns are not only visually appealing but also strategically effective.

Whether you need comprehensive creative strategies or specific assets, we’re here to elevate your brand’s presence across Meta and Google. Speak with our team to find out more.

For reference

1. https://info.ncsolutions.com/blog/the-right-five-keys-to-unlock-advertising-effectiveness