I've created 20,000+ ads. Here's what's converting NOW. transcript

So, I've had a part of making over 20,000 ads in my entire career, and today we're going to be talking about the formats that are converting like crazy right [music] now. Now, I love doing this video every single year because there's always a little bit of an arbitrage opportunity for what is driving revenue on Meta ads. And our clients have spent millions and tested thousands of creatives in Q1 of this year alone, and I got to keep it real with you.

I am actually really shocked on what is moving the needle this year. Like format number five, I actually bet against this at the agency, and I was proved wrong. For each of these formats, I'm also going to be breaking down the messaging strategies that we're pairing with them because in 2026, formats alone are not enough to grow on Meta. You really need to have a core understanding of your persona, of the messaging and angles that you're pairing with these formats, and I'm going to be guiding you through that today as well.

Also, a huge thanks to Storyblocks for sponsoring this video. More on how they're helping out with some of these formats in just a bit. So, let's dive into what's really working right now. Now, the first one that I want to talk about are the David and Goliath ads. And we're starting off with a banger this year cuz this ad has truly crushed it so much for our clients that we test it through every single brand that gets in the door.

Now, in one of my hook videos last year, I actually spoke about controversy ads, and this has kind of had a metamorphosis since then [music] into these David and Goliath ads. Now, this ad is pretty much based on the old fable of David who was a shepherd who ended up defeating the big giant Goliath. It is a classic underdog tale, and I got to say Americans love that. >> [laughter] >> And these are the building blocks of a typical David and Goliath ad.

Now, the hook has to call out an enemy, a specific industry, a massive scam, ideally something that has mass shock value and appeal. And then you contrast that with you. Now, it could be your founders directly, that's definitely something to test, or it could be just your brand as a whole. But then you immediately have to go into the proof on why you are so much better, your core differentiators for why you're doing something [music] differently, and how it benefits the customer.

Although I will say I really liked this version that really did a much more educational approach before they even introduced the brand. I've seen both personally work. Now, we found that these are more likely to perform when you combine them with the science of why you are better. And another learning is that when we use animations to communicate that, we tend to see higher retention rates and ultimately performance.

And to get these animations, cuz I already see some of you panicking, Storyblocks makes this way easier than trying to AI your way through this. Especially if you want a really quick solution and you want to test this out in a low-fi way with your founder. Storyblocks has tons of amazing animations and videos that can really bring the nitty-gritty research science-y stuff to life. Simply go to stock media, click animated backgrounds, and then search for the problems your customers are having.

For example, search for something like headache, stomach ache, acne. Storyblocks has the biggest stock footage library on the market and is perfect for combining with UGC. They also have a brand new AI toolkit where you can add voiceover and change the colors of the content so that it fits perfectly in with your ad. And of course, they are 100% royalty-free even when they're in your Meta ads. To start telling better stories today with the tools that I use, head to storyblocks.com/daradanny.

And they're offering 15% off their annual plans for a limited time, but you have to click my link in the description. One final note on these David and Goliath ads, when you are creating your initial variations of this test for this concept, I would focus on who your Goliath is, who is your enemy. I've often found that that has the biggest differentiator in performance. All right, let's go to number two, and this is going to be, I think you can already tell, obvious AI slop.

Now, people love to hate on AI ads, but these pics or style animations are actually some of the top performing formats of this year. And I will say, the more outrageous you are here, the better. Take a look at some of these examples. Hi, I'm vitamin D3. And I'm vitamin K2. I'm your stinky coochie, and we have a problem. I'm your hoo-ha. It's time I speak up. I actually think that this type of messaging would never work with creators or talent because it is so cringe.

But there's a certain type of permission granted with these type of characters, right? And I think another reason why this ad works so well is these ads aren't trying to masquerade and trick you into thinking that a person is real when they're not. It's very obviously just an animation. And if you want to see a step-by-step breakdown on how we actually make these, I would be happy to make that video for you. Just let me know in the comments.

Okay, these next two formats are a little bit more lower lift, but this is the type of format that I truly see dominating on Reels. In fact, when I was scrolling last night, every single video I got hit with was one of these two formats. And at the agency, we've really squeezed the juice on this one as well. Let me show you. Now, this one is what I like to call a TikTok [music] love letter. It is essentially long text on a short video.

So, of course, this is a really low-lift type of format. You just really have to nail the right [music] messaging. And you can see here with these top performing formats, a lot of them are immediately calling out their target audience. Listen, girls, guys, hot girls. And what I'll say, too, is we've taken a [music] lot of inspiration on what is in the comments on viral TikToks to really make sure that we're nailing the exact right vernacular.

And even though I found that creator content or iPhone footage B-roll tends to work best here. And sometimes we'll switch up the visuals, sometimes not. Luckily, because these are such low-lift, you can [music] really test a lot to figure out what works the best for your audience. I have found that if you have an audience that is 55 plus, they actually tend to respond a little bit better to more stock footage, like from Storyblocks, for example.

That tends to outperform the iPhone footage if you have an older audience. Now, very, very similar to the TikTok love letter, right? And this is something I actually talked about last year is more of the TikTok short. So, format number one is going to be a lot longer, almost like a letter. Again, this is going to be like one or two lines tops. So, for a lot of these, you're going to see the beginning of that POV. And the exact strategy that we're using to find the right messaging for the TikTok love letter or the TikTok viral short is we will actually see what is coming up on our own Reels and essentially just borrow from that format.

The final thing that I'll say about this format and another reason why I really love it, especially for brands that are new or maybe that don't have as many >> [music] >> creative capabilities, is that you can really use these creatives as a big testing ground before you go into testing creator content, for example. So, you can rapidly test messaging to spin off into bigger winners. And if you have a top performing ad already, this is another really easy one to iterate into and get some new background visuals, maybe get a new face in there.

This is really one of those hacker type of ads, even though it's very, very simple. And by hacker, I just mean [music] that it's kind of a hack. And number five, this is the one that like kind of makes me mad that it performs so well. It's this idea around calling out directly, "Hey, we're not cheap." Now, this format is technically two different types of formats. I do want to split them into two. And again, I have to say that it's the second one that just like really irks me and pisses me off.

So, let's first talk about number one. So, essentially, this ad is directly calling out, "Hey, we're not cheap, and here's all the reasons why we're not cheap." This is very classic objection handling. Now, for those of you that have been watching my channel for a long time, you remember this Oats Overnight ad, which is I think actually the easiest way to understand objection handling. It's like, okay, all of your customers or potential customers have an objection, they have a reason why they're not buying, and a lot of times they are going to be telling you why in your comments, in your social media, or even giving feedback on your website.

So, one of the best things that you can do in your ads, this is like a real core tenant of performance creative, is to make creative that is directly around that objection. This is a classic sales technique, in fact. And the specific line or hook that we've been using with our clients that we've seen consistent performance out of is this line that says, "We're not cheap, and we don't want to be." Shout out to our creative strategist Nika for that one.

I was not high confidence, but it's been crushing. Now, the one that irks me, right, and the one that goes against what I thought would perform well and scale well on Meta, is this one, the classic "We're sorry" ad. I hate this one as a creative. And I'm going to be really honest, I actually don't exactly get why it works. Like I understand functionally that you are tapping into a core human emotion, but this actually feels like something to me that should sit a lot lower funnel.

Like why would someone really care about an apology if they don't know who you are? So, the thing that surprises me is actually how well they scale up nicely, how low the frequencies are, and how much they just actually have staying power in ad accounts. I will say, if you are suspicious on this one, just try it out during a sales period that's like very classic, try it out in those image formats, but overall, it's sadly worth a try just to hide it from your brand team.

All right, and this next one is the listical format. Now, don't roll your eyes at me. You're probably thinking, "Oh god, she's not going to give us a three reasons why ad." It still works. And yes, it is the bottom of the barrel creative-wise, but I still see this as a concept and format that when we have absolutely no creativity and brainpower left, we're like, "Hey, let's do a listical ad." And I can't tell you how often it saves our ass at the end of the day.

Now, I really like this example from The Woobles cuz they're also doing something really smart here, right? They have the exact same script but with two really different types of creators. Now, something that I've talked with a lot of brands about recently is that they will actually write scripts and then distribute them to multiple creators, but not just multiple creators, multiple different types of unique personas like The Woobles are doing here.

So, that's like a little creative operations thing for you to also consider. Now, I think another really smart thing that Pakt did here was they're kind of using that negative marketing that we also used in the previous format. All right, and then finally, we have the yapper format, right? UGC is looking pretty different in 2026 and I for one am [music] relieved, but it is a little bit harder than giving a creator a script and I'll explain why.

So, these yapper ads are simply a creator yapping [music] to a camera. You're not using a ton of B-roll here. You might have captions, but you're probably not going to have text overlay. It is really meant to masquerade as an organic piece of content and like someone is just having a rant. I actually kind of like to consider them more ranters, which might be something that Joanna Wallace said. Maybe, but I do like that better.

But, colloquially, DTC Twitter has decided that we are calling them yappers. Let me show you a few of these and you're going to get it. Are there girlies in my DMs who need to poop and you might have seen my reel and I was eating those gummies that make you poop? I got you, girl. And here's another one actually that I saw for a SaaS brand. I don't love the execution on this, but you get the idea. Yo, service business owner.

Let's do a real talk. Okay? Yeah, he could have went a lot faster, but even Alex Hormozi does these type of ads, right? Now, let's contrast this with a regular UGC ad. Put the wine down and pick up true relaxation. Apothékary is a brand that helps heal with nature and this red wine inspired alcohol alternative tincture. And you can see why these yapper type of ads are actually outperforming them. Now, the reason why these are a little operationally complex is because, number one, the script has to be really flexible.

Like, the creator is going to have to go through the script and really adapt it into their own words. And they have to be really comfortable with this type of ad creator format. So, actually, if you're a UGC creator saying that you're really good at this type of ad in your profile is something that is going to be of really big interest to brands right now. Another asterisk that I'll add here as well is that these type of ads are perfect partnership ads this year.

And I've seen them work from both really big [music] brands, celebrity types, Bethany Frankel crushes the yapper style ad, or even smaller creators also can work equally as well. But, the big differentiator that I see between the large eight and nine-figure brands and the six and seven-figure brands that are really struggling is that the eight and nine-figure brands have figured out partnership ads. They are pouring a lot of their resources into working with creators and running that content through their channels as opposed to just using it on their own.

And one little hack actually that I have for finding creators is going through the creator marketplace on Meta. This is not sponsored. They are not paying me to talk about this. Just let me show you why I like it quite a bit. Number one, you can see here that creators are automatically tagged with something. So, you can see here like, "Oh, these guys are doing partnership ads. This creator right here has a strong hook." And we also get great data on these creators, right?

So, you can see the follower, that's normal, but you can also see the hook rate on creators' organic content. So, that we know this person has a 50% hook rate, which is, "Hey, that's pretty good." And she also has a 7% interaction rate, which is also pretty strong. Another thing that I like is you can see the past partnership ads that creators have worked on and branded content that they've been a part of so that you can actually see how they make their branded and partnership ad content versus their other content.

So, what I would do here is I would go through their last few partnership ads and branded content and see, "Hey, what about the yapper style? Are there certain creators that do that really well?" And you can infer the performance on that. So, creator marketplace for the win, definitely a big fan. Now, if you got to the end of this video, then I know that you are really committed to becoming a top creative strategist and girl, [music] I got you.

Be sure to subscribe to this channel. I am committing to posting one time per week moving forward and I'd really just love to have you in my inner circle. All right, I'll see you next week. Bye.