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23 Advertising Lessons from 2023 I'm Applying in 2024
The Performers Newsletter is back with 23+ ad insights
Aazar Shad
January 21, 2024
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, share some other performance marketers’ lessons with you
And I analyze & compare the best ads on the internet
📣 Announcement:
I’m running a live session that is exclusively for The Performers, but this time, it's open for you all. It is a presentation & Q&A by Jacques Spitzer — the agency founder behind Dr.Squatch, Native, and many DTC Brands. Sign up here for free. Only 20 more spots left.
It’s been a while since we last met; I needed the break to think about how to wow you. If you missed my newsletter, then you’re a keeper. I’m going to double down this year to teach even more of what I learned as an advertiser and marketer.
Anyway, I’m back and sharing what I learned last year because it’s going to define this year.
Without further adieu, here are my 23 lessons from 2023:
TL;DR
For anyone:
The foundation starts with message testing
Never assume attention
First-frame retention storytelling
Ugly ads do work
Get inspired, but don’t copy
Statics are really hard
Extreme or relatable hooks
Mindstate matters
UX familiarity bias is a thing. Exploit it
Meme ads but innovate
Lean into enemy ads
Systems over luck
One ad, one funnel, and one concept do work but keep testing (Quiz)
Targeting is a black box
Go deep too
Long ads work; you just don’t know how to make then
Target different audiences while being broad
When short on ideas, use psychology
Trust strategy before go-to-market strategy
How to hold attention (this one is my favorite)
For consultants and agencies:
Never work with a conservative industry client
Charging less, higher stress
Customer insights over everything
Let’s go!
For anyone who runs advertising:
1. The foundation starts with message testing
Look, I’ve only been an intelligent advertiser when I know “what to say” to my audience.
This “what” is crucial. You can’t simply slap on competitor messaging or reviews.
You need to test messaging. This means you need to know:
What outcomes your audience is looking for
What benefits deeply serve that audience
What is your unique, differentiated value
Who specifically you’re trying to sell
What is an unmet desire that nobody can actually serve better than you
With message testing comes:
What message works
What ad format works
Which audience works
Which landing page type works
Which kind of funnel works and more
What psychological mindset are they in to buy
What offer works that will make your audience to take action
All this takes time, and you need at least 90 days to find it if you find it sooner, good for you.
Two resources to learn more about this:
2. Never assume attention
People are sleepwalking their way through life. You need to wake them up from their sleep while they are mindlessly scrolling on the internet.
So, create something worth stopping for.
We are aware of the hook, but we rarely still ask ourselves.
Is it worth stopping scrolling for?
Take a second to answer this question next time you get final creatives.
3. First-frame retention storytelling
Storytime:
One of my clients was getting $30 CAC; I brought it down to $60.
But then, one of the ads had $10 CAC.
It’s probably the cheapest ad I’ve ever created.
Nothing was different in that ad except for one thing.
It had a relatable first-frame retention, which told the story.
Check the first frame in the next slide.
First-frame means thumbnails:
Why it worked:
It told the story with the text and those pacifiers (which is quite odd to have so many). Moms can relate to it. This created curiosity for moms to watch further.
Only the hook changed; everything else in the video was the same, yet this video outperformed every other video of mine.
4. Ugly ads do work
If there is a sentence that sums up 2023, it’s: Make ads that don’t look like ads.
This is why so many of my ads worked.
Here is one ugly ads that outperformed for me in 2023:
It’s for The Munich Post (my other newsletter).
5. Get inspired; but don’t copy
I get it. We have multiple copy tools to copy ads exactly, such as Foreplay, MagicBrief, and Adbox.
You should get inspired. But the best way to get inspired is to check your feed and learn by yourself.
All of my ads that are giving the BEST results are the ones that I originally created myself.
Sure, copying a format can’t hurt. And if you’re copying, copy customer words and insights.
6. Statics are really hard
As soon as you add a product to your static images, it becomes an ad. As I said, you need to make ads that don’t look like ads.
So, how do I overcome this barrier?
Check magazines, billboards, and Hollywood hooks to get inspired.
I watch YouTube to get inspired. One of the creators I follow is Jon Yoshuei: He shared this tip that really resonated with me.
He got this thumbnail idea below from this billboard.
I also follow Ad Professor for inspiration, but he repeats himself a lot.
I’ll make a huge swipe this year to inspire myself and you. Are you in?
Would you like a swipefile of static images that are more than just branding? |
7. Extreme or relatable hooks
If you don’t assume attention, extreme or relatable hooks are crucial.
But how do you do it in a way that earns attention?
Literally, break up with the shitty alternative
Throw it in the trash or toilet
Make universally acceptable hooks that don’t involve any words
Make an unusual setting when the creator is speaking
Some examples:
8. Mindstate matters
At some point, you’ll run out of ideas. You need to go back to basics. You need to learn what state of mind the users are in.
Are they in a positive mind state or a negative one?
For example, when I use fear as a negative mind state for moms of newborns, it doesn’t work.
But when I use positive words as a hook, it does.
9. Exploit: UX familiarity bias is a thing
People have a tendency to prefer (i.e., choose) products, services and options that feel familiar to them. They may even actively avoid considering new options.
With UX on top, it feels like part of their screen.
Millennials average 205 minutes a day. Might as well try it.
Examples here:
#1 UX familiarity: Twitter
#2 UX familiarity: IG
#2 UX familiarity: Apple
#4 Facebook:
Credit: Ad Professor
There are more UX like these: iMessage, WhatsApp, Email, LinkedIn, TikTok and more.
The secret of doing it right is to use it intelligently with authentic customer insights. Most of them are just fake and aren’t even funny.
10. Meme ads do work but innovate
This was a moment of realization. I tried meme ads for an education vertical and I gave up. Education has to be serious.
Then, I tried for other clients in ecommerce. Worked like a charm.
I came up with this thought:
Be careful using celebrity images and faces. You might get sued.
So, how do you innovate? I am trying actual memes from the meme ads account but without the faces and copyright issues. Like these:
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11. Lean into enemy ads
Why enemy ads are working for me:
They’re better than a shitty alternative
They focus on the middle-of-the-funnel audience that has tried the alternative
They polarize so you have to take a side
They are easy to target and make an opinion out of it
Here is an example:
12. System over luck
I’ve realized that I’ve overly relied on luck due to extensive testing. I need to be more organized to generate great ideas continuously.
This year, I am going to develop a proper system to keep coming up with more ideas.
Some systems content I wrote about:
13. One ad, one funnel, and one concept do work but keep testing
I was in the camp that you need only one ad, one funnel, and one concept to scale until I discovered other ways to bring CAC down.
Here’s a quiz funnel working better than the standard funnel in my ads:
It’s the same ad, landing page, and targeting. I just changed it to a quiz, and the cost per lead is less than half.
Hey! I just checked that this is a long post, and Gmail won’t let you read it completely in your inbox. Hence, I’m sharing a public link here so you can continue reading it.
14. Targeting is still a black box
Marketers are selling you that broad, which is the best way to target. Yes, it is, but advertising still works by targeting interest, lookalike audiences, and many more.
Yes, creative does the targeting. But I see different results.
For example, I target high-income audiences by targeting iOS audiences.
It works for me.
Also, I see retargeting works for me, too, with some accounts, and some accounts don’t.
So, what works for you and keep testing the targeting options.
15. Go deep too
What I mean is that you need to niche down. The nicher you go, the better the CAC.
We’re just too afraid of going niche. Recently, a client just focused on jobs-to-be-done kind of ads.
I found out that a work-from-home audience works for them even better. We would not have figured this out if I didn’t test.
Another example is that coding programs are difficult to sell because they’re saturated.
Last year, I was able to bring the cost per free trial from $600 to $48 simply focusing on “neurodiverse kids.”
Here’s the ad:
16. Long ads work; you just don’t know how to make it
I talked to three different agencies that are spending millions of dollars. All focus on longer ads.
It works for courses, ecommerce and anything people usually buy online.
More info here:
17. You can target different audiences while being broad
You can do that by:
Aspiration targeting
Focus on a community
Focus on occupation
Focus on a life stage (or big change in their life)
And many more
If you want examples, check this post.
18. When short on ideas, use psychology
Whenever I’m short on ideas, I go back to the basics of human psychology to come up with more ad ideas.
It’s the easiest trick to persuade a human mind.
I also suggest following these folks to double down on psychology:
19. Trust strategy before go-to-market strategy
Many advertisers think advertising will work even if the product is new. On the internet, we can’t trust just any website that easily. We are hard-wired to resist change.
You need to first build a trust strategy before advertising with the following tools:
Product seeding
Trustpilot
YouTube reviews
Reddit reviews
Credible mega influencer
Ad comments section
Whenever I have optimized for comments of my winning ads with customers responding to my ads, I’ve seen life in my ads. Example here:
This is an underrated tactic that most folks ignore.
20. How to hold attention
Most advertisers only focus on earning the attention but not holding the attention.
I study Mr.Beast to understand how he holds attention.
You need multiple hooks and open loops to hold attention.
The other way is to delay answering.
For example, my wife and I spent a considerable time on this, and the answer was to try this quiz.
So, embed this into your ads to increase watch time.
For consultants and agencies:
I’ll keep this short.
21. Never work with a conservative industry client
I learned the hard way. I took a client to an industry that’s usually conservative and not very open to ideas.
Working with this client brought my energy down.
So, don’t work with clients who usually only sit in their echo chambers.
22. Charging less, higher stress
It's an old-age lesson, but it's still valid. I charged less to some clients; they ended up taking the most time and created more stress.
Don’t charge less. Period.
If you’re a client, don’t pay less because advertising is a stressful and skillful job.
23. Customer insights over everything
All the ads that outperformed my other ads won due to the unique customer insights I spelled out to the prospective customers.
If you are not talking or listening to customers. You’re losing.
I’ll cover more of this in my future webinars.
That’s all from this week.
Happy Growing with Paid Social,
Aazar Shad
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