Congrats, you’ve got a hit ad! Now what?

Welcome to the latest installment of Funnel Vision, the weekly newsletter putting performance creative and growth marketing in focus.

In this week's issue:

• How to exploit a high-performing ad in three steps
• Why now is the time to prep for BFCM '24
• Bizarre ads that produce outsized results

Ready to get the vision? Let's dive in.

Reading time: 4 minutes

PERFORMANCE MARKETING STRATEGY

Congrats, you’ve got a hit ad! Now what?

Oh, how we love our high-performers. Stunning. Joyful. Fleeting.

Like ice cream in the summer sun, they are doomed to melt away all too soon. Ads that crush today won’t always do so tomorrow.

But what if they could? Now you have a hit ad, you need to make sure it keeps hitting. You can do that by identifying the elements that make it great and exploiting them.

Explore vs. exploit strategy

The explore vs. exploit strategy is a balancing act between exploring new opportunities and exploiting existing ones to maximize returns.

• Exploring is all about testing big-swing ideas. Out-there creative concepts and ideas. Fresh audiences. New platforms. Throwing the proverbial spaghetti at the wall to see what sticks.
• Exploiting is taking what sticks, iterating on it, and doubling down. Once winning elements or insights are identified, it’s then about how those points of leverage can be exploited, refined, and improved.

How to exploit a high-performing ad

Here’s a quick 3-step process for exploiting a winning ad that’s easy as A/B… C 🤷

Step 1: Break it down

What, exactly, about this ad is performing well?

Whether it’s the messaging, a great hook, the call to action, or the overall concept, isolate the winning element. Consider this ad below. The winning element is the handwritten note (which came from the explore part of the strategy).

Step 2: Iterate and improve 

Now you have a single point of leverage, it’s time to iterate, iterate, iterate.

It’s easy to think of the exploit phase as the “science-y” part of the equation, but coming up with iterations requires just as much innovation and creativity as the exploration phase.

• Some ideas to get you started: Male vs. female talent, different value propositions, smaller numbers vs. bigger numbers, humorous vs. deadpan.

Narrow your focus on this one specific aspect of the ad to think of other ways to represent it.

Example: The handwritten note from the first ad became hand-written placards for the iteration.

Step 3: Review the data

How did the new ad perform when compared to the original? 

If your KPIs are stronger, the exploit worked. If KPIs aren’t as strong, this wasn’t the right exploit. Back to the lab! Either way, you now have more data and further insight to bring to the next iteration of the ad.

💡 Takeaway

Iterations like these can seem like small fries compared to big creative swings.

But iterating and doubling down on what you know is working (even though it may seem stale) can be far more efficient than over-indexing spend on a new untested concept.

Now, new concepts are critical; hence the explore part of the explore/exploit strategy. All ads fatigue eventually. But consider dipping your toes in first before committing to the cannonball.

DON'T MISS OUT

The 2024 BFCM Bootcamp kicks off NEXT WEEK

Black Friday/Cyber Monday is the biggest retail sales event of the year.

For consumers, it’s the kickoff of the holiday shopping season. But for ecommerce marketers, it's the Super Bowl. And training begins NOW...

With the 2024 BFCM Bootcamp.

This special 2-part Screen Share series will equip you with the blueprint for running your most profitable Q4 campaigns yet.  

Session #1 is next Thursday, August 22 at 1PM ET. It's all about developing and executing a water-tight BFCM creative strategy.

What you'll learn from this one-hour session:

• How to build a high-impact BFCM creative strategy
• Winning ad frameworks, formats, and trends for 2024 and beyond
• The creative production process for transforming concepts into high-converting ads 

It all kicks off next week. See you there?

Grab your spot here!

AD TRENDS TO WATCH

How bizarre! Why weird ads work

Misunderstood conversations. Exaggerated reactions. Absurd settings.

If the above seem strange concepts to build an ad around, it’s because they are.

Yet bizarre, humorous content can achieve outsized results due to their unexpected nature. We’ve seen this approach fuel multiple recent high-performers.

This ad from Self, a fintech app, demonstrates this concept nicely.

At just 15 seconds long, it features a woman laughing hysterically to herself with simple before/after messaging overlaid on top.

Why it works

🤪 Over-the-top reactions prompt curiosity in viewers. We want to know why she’s acting the way she is.

👀 It's attention-grabbing. Brands that are bold enough to lead with are more bizarre and humorous content are more likely to break through the noise and create memorable moments.

❤️ Absurd scenarios can evoke strong emotional responses. It’s these feelings of joy, confusion, or amusement that can help the ad—and, by extension, the brand—take up more mindshare than it otherwise would.

Takeaway: What are some weird and wacky ways you can represent your product or brand?

Seeya next time, friends!

That's a wrap on this week's Funnel Vision.

As always, thanks for reading! Hopefully today's note inspires you to run with those unorthodox ideas. After all, you never know where the next hit will come from.

Trust the process 🤘