The Easiest Way To Make Winning Meta Ads (in 2026) transcript

If you are copying what your competitors are doing to get winning ads or you are optimizing for volume because you don't really know what is going to convert on meta, then this video is for you because I'm going to show you the easiest way to make winning ads on meta. Now, every time I hear one of these two things, I always want to shake these founders or media buyers or creative strategists by the shoulders because what it tells me is that they are actually really insecure in the way that they are approaching the platform.

And there's no shame in that because we've all been there. But I have become so much more confident as a creative strategist and a founder knowing that I can always back into these two frameworks and it makes me feel like winning ad creatives is a lot more of a for sure thing. And that's just for me. That's just my own bias, but I've also trained this to multiple creative strategists and seen them make it work. So, that's why I want to teach you too.

And I know what a lot of you are thinking, but like if my competitors are already winning with this, is isn't that more of a for sure thing? And the way that I like to think about this is that if you are just going to be copying what your competitors are doing, then this is the equivalent of knowing that you want to get married, aka grow your business, but you're only going to strip clubs, aka you are only stealing like what is not yours and might not even be the right thing for your customers.

Now, I want you to be operating from a more secure place, from a place where you feel like the strategy and ad creative that you put forth is going to have a much more higher likelihood of actually converting on the platform and growing your business ultimately. That's why we're here. However, there are a few basic principles that you're going to have to understand before you actually put these frameworks into action.

So, first, we are going to go over those three core basic principles that is just going to help you become a better advertiser overall, but is really going to help when you're going through the workflows of these frameworks. The first one is the big idea. This was really popularized by David Ogilvy who essentially said that the big idea is the core unique and compelling creative concept that drives an entire advertising campaign, making a brand stand out and compelling consumers to buy.

Without it, he famously noted, an ad is likely just going to pass like a ship in the night. He also said that he doubts that one in a hundred ads have a big idea. And something I want to note is Ogilvy's best work happened in the '50s and '60s. And I'd venture to say that because there's so much more advertising education out there today that there are more big ideas at play. And what I often teach when my creative strategists are putting forward their creative ideas and we're building out road maps is that every single ad creative that we have does have a big idea or an essence.

And I actually train them when looking at different advertisements to really succinctly be able to state what the big idea behind the ad creative is. Cuz if you're able to do that, then it's going to be a lot easier for you to, number two, another big basic principle, to recognize the patterns of what is actually working. Now, pattern recognition is a mega important for eCom advertisers or anyone running meta ads, especially creative strategists, because you need to be able to spot trends and spot different types of creatives that are working in your niche or in your industry or in your ad account.

You need to be able to spot, "Hey, this type of persona is actually showing up in multiple winning ad creatives. Wow, when we've done X, Y, and Z, it hasn't actually performed as well." I'd say that part of the reason why I'm such a good creative strategist cuz I have excellent pattern recognition skills. It's not because I'm the most creative, it's because I've really trained myself to really be able to zoom in on the big idea or the essence of a creative and allow that to be a bit of a beacon.

So, when I am looking across an ad account, I'm able to spot trends a lot easier. And then number three is prioritization. Again, mega, mega important for anyone who is developing a creative roadmap or developing a strategy for Meta because what you are essentially doing is developing your own creative velocity and you're developing a marketing plan over time specifically for the platform. Now, what I find a lot of creative strategists get wrong is they aren't looking properly at this type of access, right?

Which is number one, being able to prioritize what is easiest to make. So, if they have a really big creative idea that they want to test, is there a simpler way for them to validate their idea through a static, through an internal creator, through founders content before they spend a big photo shoot budget on it. That's a really big consideration and something that as a creative strategy leader, I'm often looking at when looking at our roadmaps and I see, okay, this is going to require that we hire a number of creators to really execute this well, but is there a way that we can get validation on that idea sooner?

Think about what is quickest to make. The other is what has the most likelihood to actually perform. So, you know, even when thinking about AI animation ads for instance, I had a creative strat recently put forward that they wanted to do a musical and I was like, wow, number one, that sounds like it's going to take a lot of time and it does. These animation ads are no joke and it also sounds like something that I am not very high confidence is actually going to be a long-term scalable evergreen asset because when we have made these animation ads in the past, it's often something that can, you know, get a quick hit and convert really quick for a specific audience, but isn't going to have the evergreen lasting power of something like a founders ad or a partnership ad.

So, this act of prioritization is a really important core fundamental when you are a creative strategist and you're thinking about how to make easily winning ad creative. What is the easiest way to get that validation? Or what do you have the most evidence for in support of performance? Now, the first framework is an idea that I really want you to internalize, which is that your next top performing creative already likely exists in your ad account in one way or another.

And particularly if you are spending more than 100k per month or who you've spent a million through your ad account, I would venture to guess that if you were able to look at your top 20 performing creatives over the last year and you were able to extract the big ideas from these top performers and really understand the pattern recognition, that then it would be easy for you to see, "Oh, wow. This ad creative should actually be converted into another format." So, this is one of my favorite strategies is taking the core big winning idea that has already proven to have great performance in your ad account, validated by how much it shows up, aka that pattern recognition, and then transferring that into a format that is going to have more of an emotional resonance.

Often times, this is creator content. I would highly recommend doing it with partnership ads now. So, this is actually an example of an ad that I made a few years ago that spent well over 2 million dollars for the brand. And what's interesting to note about it is I actually did this exact framework to get this winning ad. So, this was actually the complete ad test that I ran for this brand. And what's interesting to know is that all of these messaging points were actually taken from other top-performing creative.

So, the different headlines, I was really extracting that big idea from the ad itself and putting it as a headline on the specific ad, which by the way was a top performer, but it wasn't the top performer like this one ended up becoming. And specifically for this winner, it was actually what was said in the audio that I realized, "Oh, I actually think what this is the big idea versus this get ready with me style." Right?

Cuz she says, "Oh, I only have 5 minutes before I have to jump on this Zoom call." >> I literally have a meeting starting in 3 minutes and I need to look like I didn't just get out of bed. >> It's not about get ready with me. No one gives a about that. It's actually about, "Hey, I'm going to be able to do this in 5 minutes," which is where I came up with the 5-minute makeup routine. This is another example of a top-performing creative that my team made.

And again, this was taken from the big idea of other top performers in an ad account. I think you should see, "Hey, if you have top-performing creatives that's in video format, definitely try these big ideas in statics." It's one of the best ways to further develop a creative ecosystem. So, what is a creative ecosystem, right? A creative ecosystem is a combination of ad creatives that really helps the user have a cohesive journey and ultimately make the sale.

I know a lot of people talk about creative diversity, but something that I don't hear a lot of advertisers talk about is, "Hey, your big ideas actually need to show up in multiple formats, you know, from multiple creators to actually have real scale power." The average person is going to see your ads seven times before they decide to buy in the best of cases. So, the more times that you can have that big idea and that proof show up multiple times in a way that is still entertaining, is still diversified, the better for performance.

This is something that the brand Seed does so, so well and is definitely a big reason on why they are able to scale. They have this core big creative learning and they are not shy about having it show up multiple times in creator content, about, you know, putting out hundreds of statics with this type of messaging each quarter, hell, sometimes each month. So, how long should you iterate on an ad creative? Until it stops working.

If you haven't quite hit that level, I encourage you to double back and run through this framework so that you can really squeeze more juice from the fruits that you already have. Now, I know what you're thinking at this point, right? Well, what if we haven't spent a ton on ads? What if we really don't have those big core creative learnings just yet? This is where I really like going through our viral content SOP. This is something that my business partner Miguel really developed and this wasn't something that I was doing super consciously in the creative research process, but is now a big fundamental when we are onboarding a brand and candidly, something that we do weekly for a lot of our brands, especially as we see this need and this push for more top of funnel content.

And essentially, if you're going to be using organic content, aka TikTok or Reels as your inspiration point. So, we're going to be taking your big creative idea, let's say parents of picky eaters, and then you're going to search for what is currently going viral. And you'll know that you find a really special piece of content when smaller accounts are going viral from these specific formats or messaging angles. And again, leaning back into your pattern recognition, notice what tends to come up again and again.

If there are certain phrases, if there are certain visuals, if there are even certain settings or creators or types of creators. These are all things that are going to help you really zone in on a more cohesive and a shared type of strategy and ad creative. >> Because ultimately, the patterns that show up a lot should give you a lot more confidence on what you're going to execute on. And it's interesting. I know that this works really well for brands that maybe don't have a ton of data or learnings on what type of core pillars they should be executing on or big ideas.

But this is actually something that we leaned into for a really big brand as well. So they had a ton of data, but we wanted to take a really big swing on not only new concepts, but a new persona that they haven't really tested into that much. So even if you do feel like you have a lot of big core learnings, I think that this is actually a better way to validate potential new personas. And what I've actually done is, "Hey, we see these big core concepts or these big ideas as something that we really want to test into." Also taking these types of videos and scripts and then running them through Run It, which is Motion's new AI agent that lives directly in Slack.

This is actually my preferred way right now to find personas and really understand more of who our personas are. Cuz something that I was having a hard time getting around is like, "Okay, you know, when we're doing this persona-based research, I like to do it in two ways. Number one, looking at who our reviewers are and really synthesizing through ad comments and having the AI essentially spit out, 'Hey, here are your core personas.

Here's who's buying.'" The other thing that I do is I take a look at all of the ad creative that's currently running in the ad account over the last 3 months and I say, "Okay, who is the intended audience from these?" And what I really like to do is see, "Okay, based on who our audience is currently and who we seem to be targeting, is there a gap?" That gap is often something that is a really good place to start by testing ad creatives so that you can essentially fill that.

But, what I've found is that often times the people who are currently buying the product aren't always the people that are going to be the best champion users of the product, right? And depending on how good your strategy is, you're likely not even targeting them properly anyways with your ad creative. So, by being able to look at the different types of personas from viral organic content and using that to inform your strategy, this is something that I have had a lot of lightbulb moments with and winning ad creatives from with my clients recently.

So, that's currently how I'm thinking about it. If it's a little half-baked, it's cuz it I'm still going through it. Now, after going through both of these frameworks, you should have a ton of ideas written down. So, how do you know which one to choose? I do have like a sliding scale of evidence to help you prioritize your creative ideas, but in general, here's also how to think about it. And I'll just say, number one, some of it is gut.

Sometimes, you're not going to always have the right, you know, percentage point of confidence based on some Excel function sheet that you developed. Or, you know, having Claude tell you. Sometimes, it literally is gut and you need to honor that, especially as you're becoming more and more advanced in your creative strategy journey. But, if you do need help, this sliding scale is something that helps me know, "Okay, this is how I should prioritize things." And another thing, too, is you should really be prioritizing what's going to give you data the most quickly so that you can act more quickly.

This is often times why when I am going through the first framework, I like to get those statics into action. And then finally, knowing what has the biggest likelihood or evidence to scale, which is likely going to be creator content, specifically partnership ads. And that is all that I have for today. Thank you so much for watching. I'll see you guys next week. Love you. Bye.