How Creative Ads Influence ROI

A chart to remind the industry of what really matters in advertising. While teams obsess over media targeting, audience segmentation, and squeezing ROI from every programmatic penny… The real inefficiency is often the idea itself. If your ad doesn't make people remember your brand, it's not working. Research from the brilliant Adam Sheridan for Ipsos and Jones Knowles Ritchie shows that 85% of advertising dollars go toward assets that aren't truly distinctive. That’s $4 trillion globally spent on the wrong creative. As Adam puts it, “Billions are spent on measuring and perfecting performance at the lower-end of the funnel. Trying to extract an extra 0.01% from your conversion metrics; or shifting click-through rates from 1.7% to 2%. But the first principle of branding should always be recognition — the simple fact of knowing who is talking to you. That’s what drives the top-end of the funnel and where more of our attention (and investment) should be spent.” The challenge? Creating distinctive advertising is no easy feat. You can't really predict what will become popular or famous before it does. But you can increase your odds by investing in the right kind of brand assets. It's not just about hammering your logo and name. Comparing high vs. low-performing creative, Ipsos found little difference in the frequency of brand mentions or logos. However, high-performing ads used a broader variety of brand assets 34% more often than low-performing ones. Assets like sound, fluent scenarios, or recurring characters can generate up to 9 times more branded attention than a logo - and often evolve into distinctive brand platforms that fuel profitable growth for many years. Then, maximise those assets by pairing them with the right media mix - one that accounts for more than just the last click but everything that happens before. The high-attention broadcast media that first draws people to your brand. It’s a simple equation: Creative quality + media quality = long-term, profitable growth. 🚀🌐

I am sick of hearing mechanistic ideas about how advertising works. I am even more sick of leaving the customers out of the equation, as if they were brainless maggots prodded with electric needles rather than people subject to communication attempts. We know great ads can outperform others by a huge margin. Some studies say 11 times better. Others suggest 40 times, especially if you count the campaigns we never even bother to analyze. That difference is too big to ignore. We often just wave this away with one word. "Creativity." But what does that actually mean - and more importantly, how does it work? People are not blank, passive targets. Even if they’re not in the market, they’re still people with brains. And while most advertising just does the job of being there "eat this when you are hungry", great advertising goes further. It involves. It grabs. It gets noticed and remembered. It matters. But why? Now here’s what it is. Creative advertising works because it pulls the brain into doing two things at once. It hooks the fast and intuitive - and disinterested - to pay attention. But it also triggers reflection. It makes you feel and think. And that dual state builds stronger brand memory. Not just because the ad is loud or emotional or clever. But because it engages the mind in a way that changes how memory forms. Consider: ❗ Rosengren et. al. in the 2020 Journal of Marketing meta-analysis of advertising creativity finds that depth of processing is a primary pathway from creativity to brand outcomes; affect-transfer (emotion) and signalling (meaning) run in parallel rather than in opposition. ❗ Modern neuroscience shows the basolateral amygdala’s gamma synchrony “tags” co-active hippocampal and cortical neurons, making emotional episodes far more durable than neutral ones. ❗ MRI studies of scene novelty demonstrate that the hippocampus lights up first (novelty detection) and then couples with executive areas as people try to integrate the odd stimulus into existing schema - that's a good description of what creative ads do. ❗ System1 × IPA data (4 000+ TV ads, £3.3 bn media) show brands with consistent but creative work notch +28 % more “Very Large Business Effects” (sales, profit, share). Emotional star-rated ads predict long-term growth better than (only) rational copy. Thus, basically, when you engage people, they will build mental associations much better, wider and deeper than if they stay disengaged. Just registering a brand and a mention of a CEP may work on some level - but nothing like when that is paired with creativity. So get your teams to raise their eye above the real time metrics and start asking themselves the real questions. For instance: "What would it take for our ads to engage customers, so they do not just a little better, but 10x better than the mean?"

Highly engaging music can double your ROI. Yet music is still one of the least rigorously evaluated decisions in advertising. Marketers will scrutinize media plans, debate creative length, and pressure-test targeting strategies. But music is often treated as secondary, guided more by instinct and opinion than evidence. That is a meaningful gap in effectiveness. On the latest episode of The Marketing Architects Podcast, we spoke with Roscoe Williamson, Global Strategy Director at MassiveMusic, about a study that finally brings hard data to the role music plays in driving business outcomes. In partnership with the IPA (Institute of Practitioners in Advertising) and Les Binet, MassiveMusic analyzed 150 TV ads and connected how music performed across engagement, fit, surprise, and recall to commercial metrics like return on media investment, pricing power, brand fame, and salience. Here's what they found: - Music that strongly engages viewers is associated with significantly higher ROI. - Music that fits the ad well can increase willingness to pay. - Music that surprises audiences is more likely to drive fame. - And music that is remembered strengthens long-term salience. Music is a measurable creative input with real financial impact. If you care about marketing effectiveness and believe creative quality is a growth lever, this episode is worth your time. Links to the episode + the study in the comments! 🎶

2 ads. ₹1Cr in revenue. No influencers. No fancy production. Just raw insight and smarter targeting. So why did they work when 17 others flopped? Because they weren’t just made to “look” good. They were designed to think good. Let me explain 👇 We were working with a D2C beauty brand in India. ROAS was holding at 2.1x, but scaling was a nightmare. Every time we increased budget, performance tanked. So we zoomed out. Looked at behavioral signals. Not CPC. Not CTR. But: - What people clicked after watching 50% - What they bought on prepaid vs COD - What frequency they dropped off at Here’s what we found: - Creative 1 (₹0.9 CPC): spoke to Product-Aware women, mentioned ingredients and trust markers. Great for warm traffic. - Creative 2 (₹1.5 CPC):  highlighted problem awareness in a relatable setup: “Why Indian men avoid skincare.” Prepaid ratio? 84%. We stopped duplicating these across campaigns. Frequency dropped. Incremental reach soared. CAC went down 38%. Revenue in 6 weeks? ₹1.04Cr. All from 2 ads. No “Top 50 Viral Hooks.” Just deeper thinking. Not more designing. Creative strategy isn’t about design anymore. It’s about understanding: - Awareness levels - Frequency traps - Purchase psychology - Platform mechanics It’s not “How many ads are you making?” It’s “How many THINKING ads are you making?” Are your best ads built for people who already know you? Try this: ➡️ Take your highest-spend creative ➡️ Reframe the hook to speak to a colder audience ➡️ Test on a fresh campaign with exclusions Then tell me what happens

What drives marketing returns?  The answer is conceptually and mathematically simple – but maddeningly hard to isolate in real life. If you strip it down, ROI math comes from four levers: - The base of the business you're supporting (bigger = better) - The margins on that business (higher = better) - The media cost (lower = better) - The creative lift (higher = better) Now think about what a marketer actually controls: Not the base.  That is a given. Not the margins (at least not in the short term). Media cost? Yes, and because this is the easiest control point, it often becomes the focus. But creative lift is the true test of consumer response.  It’s the hardest, messiest, most unpredictable – and the most important lever of all. Controlling your costs isn’t wrong, but if it comes at the expense of energy directed at driving lift, you’ve missed the real opportunity.  Oh, and by the way, cheaper media generally reduces lift. I've had campaigns that soared and campaigns that flopped – and honestly, if I knew exactly why each outcome happened, I'd have bottled it and sold it by now. But here’s what I do know: Creative lift is worth chasing. It's worth the messy briefs, the uncomfortable risk-taking, the brutal early testing, the last-minute pivots.  It's worth the doubt and frustration and endless "just one more round" conversations.  It’s worth the difficult feedback.  It is worth your undivided attention. Because when you get it right, the ROI math explodes in your favor. Great marketers don't just manage the costs they can control.  They fight for a creative alchemy that feels completely beyond their control.  If you’ve seen a repeatable formula for great creative, I’d love to hear it.

'I'll just increase my PPC budget' Sounds like an easy solution. But it’s the most expensive mistake sellers make. Here's the hard truth: Throwing money at ads while neglecting your creatives is like filling a leaky bucket. You're watching your profits drain away with every click. The math is simple: ✓ Better creatives = Higher conversion rates ✓ Higher conversion rates = Lower cost per acquisition ✓ Lower CPA = More profitable PPC campaigns Yet I keep seeing sellers pump thousands into PPC while using the same tired creatives they made 6 months ago. The secret? Balance your investment:  → Regular creative testing  → Continuous optimization  → Fresh variations that speak to your audience One client saved 32% on PPC costs just by implementing a robust creative testing system. The ROI on quality creatives compounds over time. Remember: Your ad spend efficiency is only as good as your creatives. Don't let a fixable problem eat your profits. What's your approach to balancing PPC spend with creative optimization?

Want to improve ROAS? Stop treating ads like one-off impressions. The biggest creative mistake I see with $200+ AOV brands: treating every ad like it needs to do everything. Here's the reality: Higher AOV customers take weeks to convert and see multiple touchpoints along the way. The problem: Most ads focus purely on grabbing attention. The solution: Build a systematic objection-handling funnel. Your job isn't just driving clicks. It's architecting trust through every stage of consideration. We've build specific ad creative for each friction point. For this example tool brand: → Price concerns (featured below) → Durability questions (stress testing footage) → Battery life doubts (real-world usage scenarios) → Accuracy skepticism (third-party validation) All triggered by actual customer comments and support queries. This is objection handling advertising. The Meta Andromeda algorithm update makes this even more powerful—enabling hyper-personalized subsequent impressions that address individual concerns based on previous engagement patterns. The framework: Map every sales objection → Create targeted creative → Let the algorithm serve the right message at the right moment. Give Meta's machine learning what it actually wants: nuanced, journey-aware creative that moves people through consideration systematically. Your ads become the entire funnel, not just the entry point. This will lower CAC and increase ROAS over the long run by shortening your sales cycle and increasing CVR. Build customer journeys with your ads, not just viral one off moments.

We increased ad spend by $200k, decreased CPA by 46%, and increased monthly rev by 94% for a 7-figure health/wellness brand. Our client came to us having trouble lowering their CPAs. So after doing a deep dive into their accounts, we identified 4 main areas of improvement that were going to cut their CPAs in half: 1. New Campaign Structures Our first order of business was to construct 3 new campaigns alongside the existing setup: - A new scaling campaign optimized for the highest conversions, moving away from restrictive cost caps. - A dedicated creative testing campaign. - A customized retargeting campaign. 2. Enhanced Creative Testing One of the main issues with their previous processes was the inadequacy of their creative testing. The previous agency they were working with wasn’t giving every single creative a fair chance to convert. They were dropping various creative ideas into a large scaling campaign with cost caps, which limited expenditure to scenarios likely to convert. So what we did to make sure every single creative had a chance to shine, was structure the creative testing campaign using ABO (Ad set Budget Optimization). And each ad set tested a specific creative concept with up to three variations, allowing us to comprehensively analyze each concept's effectiveness. This allowed us to fully control spending at the ad spend level. 3. Increased Creative Volume Initially, upon our arrival, they weren’t doing nearly enough testing volume. So we ramped up the amount of testing significantly, and also moved away from fixed quotas to a more dynamic testing strategy that aimed to rapidly identify and capitalize on effective ads. 4. Strategic Retargeting The last issue we needed to fix, was the brand’s overreliance on automatic, A + SC retargeting without exploring customized retargeting campaigns that might better meet their specific needs. Our solution was to launch a retargeting campaign that basically captured all the potential customers the automated systems within the A + SC missed. As creative testing campaigns were ramping up, a comprehensive follow-up effort like this was huge for our ROI. Overall, this case study displays the importance of 2 main things: 1. Strategic campaign management 2. Tailored creative testing Focusing on these 2 principles were the main drivers in their drastic increase in ad profitability.

CTRs are dropping. CPAs are rising. Your ROI is shrinking. So what gives? You could be dealing with an underrated ad bottleneck: Creative fatigue. When your audience keeps seeing the same visuals, headlines, and messages, their brains tune out. Your once high-performing ads suddenly stop getting attention because they’ve become “invisible”. Creative fatigue can hit one ad or an entire batch that shares the same concept or color scheme. So how do you fight it? You diversify your creative strategy. Here are 3 go-to ways I use for our SaaS clients: ✦ Message Build ads around different: - emotional motivators (pains, desires, and triggers) - functional motivators (business outcomes, product capabilities, features) ✦ Format Experiment with: - static ads - GIFs - carousels - video ads - thought leadership ads ✦ Visual concept For static ads and GIFs, try out: - side-by-side comparison - metaphor/analogy - visual exaggeration - the product in action - chat conversation - real-world context - memes In a nutshell: You move away from volume to variety. That’s how you outsmart fatigue and keep ad performance strong.

𝗔𝗳𝘁𝗲𝗿 𝗺𝗮𝗻𝗮𝗴𝗶𝗻𝗴 $𝟱𝗠+ 𝗶𝗻 𝗔𝗺𝗮𝘇𝗼𝗻 𝗮𝗱 𝘀𝗽𝗲𝗻𝗱, 𝗵𝗲𝗿𝗲’𝘀 𝘁𝗵𝗲 𝘁𝗿𝘂𝘁𝗵: 𝗠𝗼𝘀𝘁 𝘀𝗲𝗹𝗹𝗲𝗿𝘀' 𝘃𝗶𝗱𝗲𝗼 𝗮𝗱𝘀 𝗳𝗮𝗶𝗹 𝗯𝗲𝗳𝗼𝗿𝗲 𝘁𝗵𝗲𝘆 𝘀𝘁𝗮𝗿𝘁. Here's what actually works 👇 #𝟭: 𝗛𝗼𝗼𝗸 𝗘𝗻𝗴𝗶𝗻𝗲𝗲𝗿𝗶𝗻𝗴 The first 3 seconds often determines the success of your creative. As a result, your target keywords should be visually dominant. And the entire piece should be mobile-friendly. Not optional. That means your text overlay must be readable and prominent. And ideally match user's search intent immediately. Pro Example. With Brushee, when we built video creative specifically to target "travel toothbrush". And displayed that exact keyword in BOLD within the first 3 seconds with a call out. We saw conversion rates jump 5% vs just marketing a generic brand video. #𝟮: 𝗖𝗿𝗲𝗮𝘁𝗶𝘃𝗲 𝗢𝗽𝘁𝗶𝗺𝗶𝘇𝗮𝘁𝗶𝗼𝗻 Keep the total length under 20 seconds. Feature dumping kills conversion. Focus on 2-3 core benefits max. Show your product in action within the first 5 seconds. And test different creative specifically for different keywords. #𝟯: 𝗧𝗲𝗰𝗵𝗻𝗶𝗰𝗮𝗹 𝗘𝘅𝗲𝗰𝘂𝘁𝗶𝗼𝗻 The key to optimizing clicks to your page lies in the details. One of major keys is to optimize for silent viewing. 85% of users browse on mute. That means you need to use high-contrast captions that pop on mobile screens. And ensure crystal clear product shots with proper lighting. 𝗞𝗲𝘆 𝗧𝗮𝗸𝗲𝗮𝘄𝗮𝘆: Stop treating your video ads like YouTube content. This is direct-response advertising that needs to convert in seconds. If you have questions on how to boost your ROAS using these principles. 📩 Just DM me "VIDEO". Happy to help. - Find this useful? ♻️ If so, repost it to your network and follow Ian Rollin Berry for more.