Episode 215: Winning Ad Creative: What Works Now & How to Measure It
Apr 16, 2025
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Ben Bennett, Creative Director at Smart Marketer, dives into what makes ad creative tick. He emphasizes the power of emotional resonance over flashy tactics to drive sales. Discover the three key metrics that matter, including the innovative 'thumb stop ratio' to gauge ad engagement. Bennett also shares how AI tools like ChatGPT can streamline the creative process without replacing human insight. Tune in for actionable tips to enhance your ad performance and connect with your audience on a deeper level.
Effective ad creative hinges on emotional resonance, requiring marketers to understand and connect with their audience's needs and dilemmas.
Three key metrics—click-through rate, conversion rate, and thumb stop ratio—are essential for measuring ad performance and driving strategic refinements.
Advancements in AI tools like ChatGPT revolutionize the creative process by enabling marketers to generate high-quality visuals effortlessly, enhancing their competitive edge.
Deep dives
The Importance of Tracking Metrics
Tracking the effectiveness of ad creative is vital for businesses aiming to optimize their return on investment. The discussion emphasizes the need for accurate data collection to ensure that marketing strategies are grounded in measurable outcomes. Tools like Hyros are highlighted as essential for capturing a more comprehensive view of sales generated by ads, especially in an era of increasing privacy concerns that complicate data tracking. Utilizing such tools allows marketers to avoid potential revenue loss and make informed decisions based on accurate metrics.
Key Metrics for Measuring Ad Success
Identifying the right metrics is critical for evaluating ad performance, with the conversation focusing on three primary indicators: click-through rate, conversion rate, and thumb stop ratio. The click-through rate measures how compelling the ad is in prompting potential customers to engage, while the conversion rate speaks to the effectiveness of the ad in closing the deal. A specific insight provided is the importance of the thumb stop ratio, which tracks how many viewers stop to watch a video ad for at least three seconds, serving as a key indicator of attention-grabbing content. Understanding and analyzing these metrics holistically allows marketers to refine their creative strategies for better results.
Understanding Why Ads Fail
Creatives often fall short due to misalignment between the ad's emotional messaging and consumer needs. It is crucial for marketers to diagnose why certain ads do not work, instead of discarding the entire creative batch. The discussion advises using failures as learning opportunities to refine future campaigns, emphasizing the need to connect emotionally with the target audience. An example includes a brand that shifted its approach by identifying and addressing specific customer pain points, ultimately leading to improved ad performance.
Creating Emotionally Resonant Ads
The conversation delves into crafting ads that strike an emotional chord with audiences, recognizing that connection often leads to conversions. Discussing 'the heart of the message,' it is noted that successful ads convey a genuine understanding of customer dilemmas and aspirations, moving beyond mere product features. This emotional engagement can be achieved through testimonials or relatable scenarios that resonate with potential buyers. Key takeaway strategies involve presenting relatable contexts and employing persuasive visuals that invoke strong feelings, making consumers more likely to engage.
Leveraging New Technology in Creative Development
Recent advancements in AI, particularly with tools like ChatGPT 4.0 for image generation, are revolutionizing the creative process for marketers. These technologies provide a user-friendly way to generate graphics and visuals by allowing users to describe desired outputs with precision. This is particularly beneficial for those lacking design skills, as the generated images can be incorporated into marketing materials with reduced manual editing. As the industry evolves, embracing these technological tools is advised for enhancing creative capabilities, ensuring brands remain competitive in capturing consumer attention.
Episode 215 – Smart Marketer Show Winning Ad Creative: What Works Now & How to Measure It Episode Description
What makes an ad actually perform in 2025? In this episode, John Grimshaw and Ben Bennett pull back the curtain on the creative process that drives real sales—from emotional resonance to performance metrics. You’ll learn why good creative starts with empathy, how to identify your strongest hooks, and which numbers really matter.
Plus, we introduce a brand-new metric (yes, we named it), and show you how AI is changing the creative game—without replacing your team.
“If your ad doesn’t have a heart, it will not perform well.” —Ben Bennett
You Will Learn
The 3 key metrics that reveal if your ad creative is working
How to identify and fix poor-performing ads (without guessing)
Why emotional hooks beat flashy tactics every time
How to use AI image tools like ChatGPT to speed up creative
The “thumb stop ratio” metric you should be tracking (and how)
A 30-minute Action of the Month to sharpen your creative instantly
02:05 – Meet Ben Bennett: Creative Director at Smart Marketer 03:15 – Top 3 Metrics That Matter for Ad Creative 07:24 – Metric 1: Unique Link Click-Through Rate 11:54 – Metric 2: Conversion Rate & Ad Scent 15:51 – Metric 3: Thumb Stop Ratio 19:00 – How to Set Up and Benchmark Your Thumb Stop Ratio 21:07 – AI for Ad Creatives: How ChatGPT-4 is Changing the Game 26:32 – Action of the Month: Add Heart to Your Hooks 27:27 – The Heart Behind Your Creative 29:30 – If Your Ad Doesn’t Have a Heart, It Won’t Perform 30:33 – The Hook and the Hand: A Smart Marketer Analogy 34:01 – Making Facebook Ads People Don’t Hate 36:24 – Hooks vs. Heart: What's Missing in Most Ads 40:57 – A Simple Exercise 42:56 – The Nine Motivators That Move People 45:12 – Building Visual Hooks Around Real Situations 45:39 – How to Think About Hooks, and How They Fit Into Existing Ads 48:08 – How to Create Really Good Problem Hooks 56:48 – Here's How to Copy This Win
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