- The Performers
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- Ad Lessons Learned from 2025 Across Industries
What's up, Marketers! This is Aazar.
This newsletter is about leveling up your paid growth marketing skills by analyzing the best brands' paid strategy, tactics, positioning, and value props.
This newsletter is divided into:
Sharing what I've learned (this issue)
Sometimes sharing some other performance marketers’ lessons with you
And I analyze & compare the best ads on the internet
PSA for Agencies
I recently started working with a video editing agency that scaled my production from 40 to 1,400+ videos/month.
What stood out:
Pod structure - multiple editors per pod means no bottlenecks when volume spikes.
Editors are actually well-trained - not just cheap labor. Quality stayed consistent at scale.
24-48 hour turnaround and they understand ad creative workflows (iterations, rapid testing).
Pricing scales - at high volume, less than one full-time editor.
If you're stuck in creative bottleneck hell, happy to make an intro.
Need help scaling your video ad creative output? |
I want to thank Insense for sponsoring this newsletter.
From one collab, get numerous raw footage clips to mix, match, and turn into multiple scroll-stopping creatives for your paid social ads.
Source 20+ pieces of raw content (per creator) with lifetime usage rights, all delivered in 14 days or less.
Too busy or don’t have the right team? Let Insense’s managed services handle it
Insense offers both a self-serve platform and fully-managed services (or a hybrid model combining both).
Their in-house managed services include: post-production, influencer scouting, campaign management, creative concepts, and more.
This year surprised me.
I spent $30M+ this year running ads across health, D2C, lead gen, and apps, same principles, completely different results.
I wanted to share these lessons with you as a creative strategist and media buyer.
This is what I saw while managing accounts, killing underperforming creatives, and doubling down on what actually moved the needle.
Different industries need different creative levers. Different psychology. Different hooks.
All lessons will still be relevant even if you don’t belong to the industry.
No fluff. Just what worked and what didn't.
If you run ads or build creatives, this will save you months of testing.
This issue is more like you and me sitting down and sharing lessons about what worked and what didn’t in a real conversation, except it is in the newsletter.
Let's get into it.
Industry #1: Health
Human desires don't change. Proof requirements do.
People want relief. Certainty. Control. What changed was how much proof they needed to believe.
VSLs are still your best tool to educate upfront
The more you educate clearly, the more people convert. Especially for specific use cases.
No B-roll, no sale.
Strong visual reactions in the first few seconds made a big difference. Holding the product. Showing emotion. That pulled people in faster than explanations.
AI helps you make demos you can't shoot in real life
For example, we created this—visually breaking an Apple Watch with AI helped us demonstrate contrast without physical constraints. It attracted attention and sparked curiosity.
AI ads work. Especially for 50+ audiences.
Earlier, I was skeptical. However, the data has now changed my mind.
Important: If you use overused AI avatars, it won’t. You need to create your own avatars.
Industry #2: D2C
Bid caps drive scale. Cost caps protect it.
Bid caps push volume when you find winners. Cost caps keep you profitable at scale. Most people use only one. The best accounts use both.
FOMO and social proof do the heavy lifting. When people see others buying, they want in.
Standard UGC is dead. Story-driven UGC wins now.
Nobody cares about generic testimonials anymore. They care about transformation stories. Real outcomes. Emotional payoff.
Keep testing pricing to protect your margins
I learned that pricing is the biggest lever in DTC to make or break your business. Small pricing changes can create massive margin improvements without hurting conversion.
We changed our pricing from $24.95 to $29.95 for one of our DTC brands, and suddenly everything became profitable without even increasing the cost per acquisition (CPA).
Make claims that sound too good to verify
If your pain doesn't budge in 60 days, we'll buy it back. No questions asked. These guarantees remove all friction.
Competition is brutal. Lean into unique insights or stay average.
You need a sharper offer and deeper product understanding. For example, I created this ad using affect heuristics like "my body asked to lie down" makes people feel the benefit instantly. That emotion wins.
CRO is nice BUT the creative drives conversion.
This was a big realization. My highest conversion rate improvements came from better creatives, not landing page tweaks.
I changed the order of how I work. I focused on making the creative stronger first. Then I aligned the landing page to that message. Everything started moving faster after that.
Thanks to our partners who support this newsletter.
Tools worth checking out:
Atria: You're only as good an advertiser as your swipe file. Atria helps save good ads and analyze them in-depth. But the best part? Their AI helps me create concepts and scripts within seconds. Check it out for free. Most importantly, they have built-in ad analytics to create more winning ads.
They now have everything I need: a swipe file and discovery ads, an AI creative strategist, analytics for collaboration and client reporting, asset management to maintain a single library for my video editing team, and competitor tracking to monitor their every move.
Industry #3: Apps
Ad angles won’t matter if your in-app flows suck.
This surprised me the most. We recently changed the onboarding and paywall software and became profitable.
Small changes inside the app and the App Store flow did more for conversion than new angles, hooks, or audiences.
Better onboarding, cleaner screens, better load time globally and fewer decisions to make.
Ads brought people in. The product decided whether they converted.
Web quizzes are non-negotiable in 2025 and beyond
Asking users a few questions before sending them to the App Store changed the mindset completely.
They started finishing something instead of just browsing. That intent carried through to installs and trials.
TikTok organic formats beat polished ads every time
Raw. Vertical. Native. No polish.
These formats feel familiar. They don't feel like ads. And that matters a lot for apps.
Street-style interviews build trust faster than perfect demos
Asking someone what they're doing and casually showing the app sounds simple, but it works. It feels unplanned. That unplanned feeling builds trust faster than a perfect demo ever could.
Industry #4: Lead Generation (Services)
Podcast style isn't a format. It's borrowed authority.
Especially when targeting premium audiences. Calm conversations. Real insight. No shouting. People stayed longer and trusted more.
UGC is table stakes. Studio quality wins now.
With lead gen, we saw one of our clients serves doctors so we did that with podcast style.
You need real doctors/lawyers, experts, and operators. That credibility shift changed results almost immediately.
Hook with crazy. Hold with clarity.
Side note: The above example is a perfect use of AI ads.
This mattered even more when the product wasn't shown upfront. Attention had to be earned fast.
Tap into the psychology of FOMO and Jealousy (everyone's winning but you).
Showing the pain clearly and making it psychological before introducing the solution kept people watching. And helped us convert better.
Another partner shoutout.
I've been using a tool to launch ads in bulk every week with just 3-5 clicks or fewer. I used to spend at least 15-20 hours/week on this, but now it takes only 2 hours/week.
I'm grateful for this tool because it has helped me scale my agency and focus more on creative work rather than just media buying aka uploading ads.
This tool is called Admanage. It’s a bit pricey, but on an hourly savings basis, it only costs 2 hours of my entire month’s time. Plus, you can't just self-onboard; you need some help initially. So, talk to their team.
My average is around 500+ ads a month already and 1000+ due to BFCM.
You’ll thank me in 30 days once you’ve automated ad upload management, at least. There are more features that I love, but this is the best one.
Get a demo with their team. (Use code AAZAR to get 20% off.)
Happy Growing with Paid Social,
Aazar Shad
One way I can help you, whenever you are ready:
Work with me to scale your creatives. Book a call here. I’m open to more clients now.
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