What’s the number one most important lever we have to drive success on paid social campaigns? Based on the title of this blog you probably guessed it – creative. To set yourself up for success, your brand needs to have a clear vision for the creative, a data-driven testing strategy, and an execution plan that’s scalable. Although creative has always been imperative for success, it’s increasingly important due to the evolution of social platform algorithms in recent years.

If you wanted to ensure you were targeting your desired users several years ago, the best strategy was to design hyper-specific audiences based on interests, behaviors, or past purchases. But in a post-iOS 14 world, platforms have responded by introducing and expanding campaign types enabled by increased automation; Advantage+ campaigns are now top performance drivers on Meta, and Pinterest recently released a similar product.

With these changes, advertisers have less visibility and control over user targeting. This phenomenon has created the common phrase, “creative is the new targeting.” At this point, the best way to reach a desired audience is to craft creative tailored to them instead of using particular targeting dimensions at the ad set level.

For now and the foreseeable future, we still have control over the creative we put into the market and how we create iterations based on performance. We recommend putting time and effort into crafting a strategy that is scalable on paid platforms and reaches your target users.

We’ve already mentioned the three things you really need for winning creative: a clear vision, data-driven testing, and a scalable execution plan. Let’s dive into the details for each of these key 3 aspects.

Clear Vision for Creative

You can have the most talented designers in the world, but if you’re unclear in the direction you give them, there’s no way you’ll be pleased with their output. It’s best to give your creative team specific guidelines so they know how much room they have to ‘play’ in.

Your team must know what you’ve done before, what worked, what didn’t, and how you want to evolve in this next phase. Using examples from other brands you admire and want to emulate is extremely helpful to bridge the gap between your descriptor words and the vision you want to achieve.

On top of the aesthetic vision, it’s important to align on the purpose of creative within your marketing strategy. Is it produced to look pretty, drive results, or both? If the answer is both, can you be more specific with ‘results?’ Do you want a certain CTR or CPA?

Drill down to what’s important to your particular business and how creative can help you achieve your overall goals. Once you feel solid in that, clearly communicate your needs to your team so they can pitch ideas that ladder up to your measurable goals.

Data-Driven Testing

Creative, by nature, tends to be subjective. You can put 10 people in a room, and they may all have different thoughts on what the ‘best’ creative is from a particular batch of assets. On the other hand, data is much more objective.

It’s normal and good for stakeholders to have hypotheses about what will resonate best with audiences and why, but at the end of the day, it’s crucial to rely on data to make decisions about what should stay live, what should be paused, and how we should iterate for future variations.

Tracking this performance in real-time with a creative matrix is a great way to make sure everyone on the team is aligned on what’s working and what isn’t.

Scalable Execution

Once you’ve established your vision for creative and committed to data-driven testing, you want to be able to execute your strategy at scale. As you test hypotheses methodically and with data to call your tests, prioritize speed over perfection.

The more tests you can run with actionable results, the more you’ll learn about your users. This is crucial to growing your business and meeting the overall goals you’ve set. It’s no secret that the special sauce to sustainable growth marketing is rapid experimentation.

Every time you launch creative, you should be iterating on something that’s performing well and introducing a net-new concept to market. It may feel safer to only churn out assets that resemble ads that have ‘worked,’ but if you rest on your laurels, you’ll never find the next great ad for your brand. If you balance safer bets with bigger ones, you’ll be able to scale your creative testing and unlock new learnings along the way.

5 Most Common Mistakes to Avoid in Creative Testing

1. Strict A/B Testing

Several brands will only call tests after they’ve run extensive A/B testing. We value speed over perfection and believe once you’ve spent against test assets in their own environment (ad set or ad group), you should have sufficient learnings to understand if they’re resonating or not.

Most clients will look at conversions or revenue driven at efficiency metrics such as CPA, CAC, or ROAS to determine success. Rigid A/B testing will slow you down and hurt performance in the long run because it will take you longer to get actionable results.

2. Falling into the AI Optimization Trap

Many platforms, but especially Meta, have recently been pushing AI optimizations that alter your creatives. They do this with positive intentions by promising increased conversions if you check the boxes in the platform that will give them power to alter your creatives how they see fit.

This is a good idea in theory, but these optimizations often make your creative look sloppy, and it can create a poor experience for your users. We recommend keeping these turned off until Meta is able to significantly improve the product.

3. Not Creating Roadmaps

You should build out a roadmap of the tests you want to run for the next month and follow it diligently. If you can sign off on briefs from your team at the top of the month, and they have the time and freedom to execute against them in batches, they’ll be much more efficient.

This goes beyond giving approval on general creative themes/tests. If you can approve in-asset copy, products featured, and the test proposed, you’re setting your team up for more success. These roadmaps should be fluid to the point that if you have a million-dollar-idea that must be tested, it can be slotted in. But barring that incredible exception, align on briefs with your team and give them autonomy to execute.

4. Pausing Creatives Too Quickly

We’ve all been in a position when Total Biz isn’t doing well and we’re looking for places to cut spend. Inefficient creative testing for newly launched assets may be one of the first places you’d want to get back some easy efficiency gains.

We recommend keeping assets live for at least a week before pausing anything, although of course there may sometimes be exceptions. Give them a chance to succeed, and if they don’t, then feel free to pause them out.

5. Not Testing Enough

If your creative team has capacity, you should be testing new concepts and iterations of past performers every week. This is even more important ahead of tentpole periods to ensure you can make the most of high-converting times for the business such as BFCM for e-comm. You shouldn’t be afraid of trying something new – it just might work and unlock incremental conversions for the brand.

How Does This Come to Life?

Below is an example of what this might look like for a typical brand just starting out with creative testing.

This setup focuses on one audience, Prospecting, which consists of users who are not familiar with the brand. One campaign called “Top Performers” has all the assets that perform efficiently at scale; these are tried and true concepts. The majority of the budget goes to these assets because they’re so strong.

The second campaign is the creative testing campaign, which tests several concepts at a much lower budget. Top performers are copied and pasted or ‘graduated’ into the top performers ad set to compete against other tried and true concepts. As a general rule of thumb, 30% of spend should go to creative testing.

New concepts should be tested every week or every two weeks, and top performers should be variated on to generate even more revenue/leads/purchases for the business.

Supercharge Your Strategy with Creative Testing

Now you’re prepared to build a creative strategy that is tailored to your business. First you’ll set a clear vision, then you’ll commit to data-driven testing, and finally you’ll build a scalable execution plan. One last word of advice – keep in mind that it’s not necessarily bad if creative ‘fails.’ Instead, this result gives you another learning that will help you optimize future variations to drive stronger results with your target audience.

The post Ultimate Guide to Creative Testing for Paid Social Campaigns appeared first on NoGood™: Growth Marketing Agency.

Before we get into the details, it’s important that we discuss two commonly confused terms: programmatic advertising and programmatic channels. In simple terms, programmatic advertising refers to automating the ad buying process to sell and purchase ad space in real-time via an auction. Think of this as a direct contrast to traditional TV and direct mail buys, which do not have an auction that is constantly shifting every moment. 

A programmatic channel consists of display/video and includes out of home (OOH), CTV, banners, etc. in contrast to other channels such as social and SEM. Think of programmatic advertising as an umbrella that all digital marketing platforms sit under and the programmatic channel is just one of them, in addition to social and SEM.

In this article, we’ll cover 4 programmatic advertising ad examples that we can learn from and adapt for 2025.

4 Programmatic Advertising Examples

1. Spotify: Wrapped Dynamic Billboards

This example is from several years ago but is as relevant as ever. Spotify transformed its popular annual campaign ‘Wrapped’ into an interactive programmatic advertising ad campaign. This was the first real-time OOH activation they did, and it was executed in cities worldwide.

Users who were physically in the presence of the digital OOH billboards could opt-in to have their ‘Wrapped’ displayed in real-time on digital billboards directly in front of them. This OOH experience evolved an already extremely popular campaign and brought it outside of the digital ecosystem into the ‘real’ world. In the process, a new dialogue was created between users from all over as they connected in real-time. The only thing more compelling than big, dramatic billboards are big, dramatic billboards that feel deeply personal.

This execution was impactful as it increased brand affinity for existing users but also introduced more people to the brand who were not familiar with it. Typically most campaigns are targeted towards new users, but to be able to intrigue new and existing customers is a powerful play by Spotify.

Advertisers must take a nuanced approach when attempting to replicate Spotify’s success in their digital marketing strategy. Many users are concerned that countless companies have access to their personal data. What makes this campaign interesting is that it turns the idea of data privacy’s association with fear on its head; instead it makes sharing data cool and exciting for the user. In Spotify’s case, music taste is something that most people take pride in and feels connected to their sense of identity.

Brands need to scour their first-party data to find attributes that users would take pride in sharing and execute against that when asking them to show off to their peers, similar to the Spotify example. If your business is a card company, then you could ask a customer to share the holiday card template they picked that year. If your business is a social media app, then you could ask a user to share their 5 most liked images of the year. Whatever your company is focused on, there’s likely something your user base would be excited to share with others that you could build a campaign around.

2. Nike: Weather-Based Digital Ads

Nike partnered with the Weather Channel mobile app to present users with clothing suggestions based on their current weather conditions. For example, if it was rainy, then a rain jacket would be advertised. If it was sunny, then a sweat-resistant, breathable t-shirt would be presented. From there, users could click through to Nike’s site where they could buy the suggested items or continue browsing. 

This was a play focused on the bottom of the funnel, but also increased awareness for users who did not purchase but were curious about the thoughtful options offered.

What this campaign did great was help a user make the connection between a real-world situation (the weather) and Nike’s product offerings. When shopping for clothing, we typically think about future scenarios that our future self will be in and pick clothing accordingly for that distant moment. This execution instead connected the weather to current needs and products that would fulfill those needs. Instead of the distant connection between future self and future weather, the moment felt more immediate and rooted in reality.

Advertisers can learn from this by partnering with the Weather Channel if they have a seasonal product. For example, a mattress company may want to advertise cooling sheets or cooling mattresses on particularly hot days. A streaming service may want to increase spend on rainy days when people will be staying inside, looking for some way to entertain themselves. Staying in tune with the current weather trends and how they may impact your business is a smart way to engage users in moments they’re more likely to convert.

3. McDonald’s: Traffic Buster OOH

McDonald’s launched a clever OOH campaign that showed different ads depending on the flow of traffic. For example, when traffic was backed up, they displayed a message that started with ‘Stuck in a jam?’ This was a smart way to communicate with users based on the context of their current situation. The campaign used real-time data from Google Traffic API to ensure the right message was shown at the right time to users on the road.

Drivers are used to being inundated with billboard ads on heavily trafficked highways. After a while, the ads tend to blend in with each other, and it’s increasingly difficult for brands to stand out and make an impact. McDonald’s combined cheeky humor and real-time data to make a connection with drivers and cut through the noise. 

One smart way that advertisers can learn from this is to integrate with the Google Traffic API if it makes sense for their business. This is particularly useful to brands that have brick-and-mortar locations and are aiming to increase foot traffic or sales to a particular location. Combining real-time data from the API and a funny, attention-grabbing headline will likely be an effective way to engage users and achieve goals.

4. Audi: Dynamic Car Customization Retargeting

Audi’s programmatic campaign was focused on the launch of the extremely customizable Q2 car. They utilized a car configurator tool onsite to support customers in crafting their dream car, choosing from seemingly limitless options. Audi combined data from the configurator related to each user’s preferences and data related to their place in the funnel. For users who built their dream car in the configurator tool and had been to site before, they were served ads that featured cars looking like the ones they built. More than 6,000 variations of the ad were created, which provided a customized experience to all users.

As a result of using this dynamic programmatic campaign and targeting approach, Audi drove a conversion rate 4x higher vs. their previous, more traditional approach. 

What’s interesting about this example is that the ad variations felt hyper-personalized to each user, and they were, but they weren’t infinite. There were 6,000 variations, which was more than enough for each user to feel seen and like Audi recognized them as an individual. Not only did they experience the euphoria of creating their ideal car and dreaming about buying it, but then they were reminded by that special experience at a later point, through an ad. It kept Audi top of mind, which is key for any advertiser. 

Marketers can action on this example by providing configurator tools on their site to learn more about their customers preferences and to give their users additional ways to explore their brand and products. Combining that data with existing site users is a powerful way to retarget people who have been to site but have not yet been compelled to convert.

Conclusion and Takeaways

Inject Creativity in Contextual Moments

These campaigns all made users stop what they were doing and think about what information was being presented to them in an ad format. Many people openly say they don’t like ads or even hate them, but what they hate is the monotony of an experience over and over when they’re trying to do something else entirely. These ads felt more like one-off experiences rooted in their current reality. This made them more engaging and impactful than a traditional campaign.

Data is Key

All of these ads would not have been possible without a significant amount of data collection. This was used to cater each user’s experience to each current situation and make the ad experience that much more meaningful and memorable. For example, Spotify used its own 1st party data, Nike partnered with the Weather Channel, and McDonald’s partnered with Google Traffic API. No matter how creative your idea is, it must be backed up with data to create an unforgettable experience for the end user.

OOH is Powerful

Many advertisers are scared to test OOH because it can be difficult to measure results or craft creative that’s good enough for such a highly trafficked area. These are logical concerns, but considering how OOH can use creative and data to create one-of-a-kind brand experiences, it should be seriously considered by all advertisers. 

No matter what brand you’re advertising, there are many ways to incorporate programmatic advertising if you’re creative and want to try something that will make a big impact.

The post Programmatic Advertising 101: 4 Examples to Learn From appeared first on NoGood™: Growth Marketing Agency.