211: The Creative Cocktail: Blending the Perfect Ad Creatives
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Brandi: [00:00:00] Ever feel like your ad campaigns are missing that special something? On today's Serve Scale Soar podcast episode, we're mixing up the perfect creative cocktail for your ads. Forget the guesswork on how many creatives you need or sticking to the same old strategies.
I'm revealing how to blend. The right mix of images, carousels, and reels to make your client's ads pop lower cost and drive results. Whether you're new to ad management or looking to sharpen your skills and strategy, this episode is your blueprint to crafting campaigns that stand out.
Ready to shake things up and pour success into your ad strategy? Let's jump on into this week's episode.
Welcome back to the Serve, Scale, Soar podcast. The go to place if you want to start, grow, and scale your ad management business. My name is Brandi Mowles and I'm [00:01:00] your host. And today we're diving into one of my favorite topics. It's so fun. It's called the creative cocktail. This is something I teach with inside of my strategy octagon inside of my group coaching mentorship Called certified which helps step out of the ad manager role and step into the ad strategist role So I'm really diving in and taking you behind the scenes of how to craft Your creative cocktail, which is fun.
Cause the most asked question I get is Brandi, how many creatives do I need per ad set? And it used to be, it depends, but today I'm going to break you down a great place to get started with your creative.
Especially if you don't have a lot of data from you working with them in ads and what's currently working is you want to implement the creative cocktail. And so we're going to dive into that today and I'm going to show you what three ad creatives every new account or existing [00:02:00] one but new to you should have in their campaigns.
So let's jump into the creative cocktail. The creative cocktail really has It's more than just creative. It also incorporates copy. So let's break this down first. Whenever we talk about creative, we're usually talking about the video, the graphic, the carousel post that goes in there. And our strategy octagon we also include The copy but today we're not going to talk about copy that can be saved for another episode I just want to focus on the actual creative so the image you use the video you use the carousel you use That's what we're going to talk about and even before we jump into that.
I want to take you back to
I want to take you back to 2011. I think that's the right year. 2011. I was 21 and I had finally made it. I had finally made it. Like, [00:03:00] I thought I'd hit like the top. of my career. I just turned 21 and I became a bartender. So ever since I was 14, I've worked in the restaurant industry. I've bussed tables.
I've hosted. I've done car hop. I've done to go. I've been in the back of the house and done expo, food runner. I've done silverware rolling, I've been a waitress, but then that pivotal moment came in 2011, where I hit the top, I became a bartender, and it was so freaking exciting.
And so one thing I learned during that bartending experience is The better the drink you make, the better the tip. So let me break this down for you. When you have a beer and you pour a beer from a tap, you get like a dollar tip. Maybe if they really like you, you'll get two dollars. But pouring a beer, opening a bottle, not a big deal.
There's one element. Then you get a mixed drink. But like one of the pre mixed drinks where it's like, Hey, I want a [00:04:00] margarita, a house margarita. Great. Let me pour some sours, mix in some tequila in a glass and throw some ice in there. And I'll even sauté for you. Great. Then you get a little bit bigger tip.
But the real tips happen. The real money making opportunity happens when you make a fancy drink. Like a martini. When you can nail a martini and that customer takes a sip and they're like, Oh, this is so good. That's when the big tips roll in. And it's the exact same thing with the creative cocktail. You can put out ads and a campaign and at the ad level, maybe you just use static images and maybe you see a return.
Great. But you're missing a huge opportunity to lower your ad costs when you only focus on static images. You're missing the real money making opportunities. And this goes for if you're only using Reels, if you're only using Carousel. Whenever we only [00:05:00] use one type of creative, you are missing out on opportunities.
Because not everyone It's going to respond to that one type, not everyone wants to click on a real, not everyone wants to click on a static image. So when we can put more options to entice someone to click, we can lower our client's ad costs. We can lower their lead costs. We can increase their click through rate.
And so if right now you look in your client's ad account and you're only only. Running one type of ad creative you are doing your clients a disservice, and I'm not talking about hey You have five static images Great, but as we've talked about in the episode on reels that you can check out. We'll make sure that we link that up That's not cutting it the algorithm wants reels and that doesn't mean that we don't run static images But it does mean that you better have a reel in there.
So, when we look at the creative cocktail, when I talk [00:06:00] about the creative that should be in each ad account, we're talking about the three creatives that we're seeing the biggest impact. One, you need a static image. Two, a carousel. Here's the deal. Sometimes carousels work really well with clients.
Sometimes they don't. Sometimes you just need to find a better hook. Sometimes you need to change up the order. Sometimes it depends on what type of campaign. So we'll talk more about that. And then three reels. You better have at least one reel in there. When I do the ad audits for clients now, I don't run their ads, but I go in and do ad audits.
Usually these people have been running ads. They're spending tens of thousands of dollars per month on ads and they don't know if their ad managers are doing a good job or not. And so I go in and do ad audits and tell them, I don't tell them if their ad manager is doing a good job or not, but I do tell them where I see room for improvement.
And one of the biggest things I see is lazy. [00:07:00] creative. And by that I mean, we're running just like bland, creative. They're not running reals, they're not doing carousels. They're only focused on static graphics. And a lot of times they're not on brand. They're not stopping the Scroll. They're just things that have used.
And then when I get into the account and I start looking at their outbound click through rate, I don't look at outbound, or click through rate. I look at outbound click through rate, and I see that it's under 1 percent and I'm not I see a huge opportunity for growth. I see a huge opportunity for ad performance to improve.
And so when I see that, and then I asked them, why aren't we running any videos? And they're like, Oh, they tell me they don't work. I'm going to argue with that because I have been in, in the last month, 25 ad accounts. And one thing I noticed is that clients who are running ads ReelStyle, their added costs are lower than they were two years [00:08:00] ago, a year ago.
The clients who are not running any videos in the account are experiencing higher ad costs. So, maybe your Reels don't get The lowest click through rate or the lowest cost per lead. Maybe they don't have the highest click through rate, but it doesn't mean that they're not working in the account. Because it takes 7 to 21 times for someone to interact with us before they make a buying decision or a lead, like just even clicking the ad.
So we have to have different ways to connect. And reels is one of the best ways currently. And so with that being said, if you're doing lazy advertising, which means you're only using one style, you're doing your client a disservice. And the way we can see, this is especially if your outbound click through rate is less than 1%.
So whenever you go into create a new campaign when working with a new client, or maybe you've been working with a client, but you're like, Brandy, I've been doing lazy marketing. [00:09:00] Today's a great day to change that. You go in and you say, okay, this campaign, I'm going to do three different creatives. I'm going to do a carousel.
I'm going to do a static. And I'm going to do a reel. Then what we're going to do is we're going to do an audit on their account. We're going to find out what his work performed the best in the last six, uh, in the last year. So we're going to find like, okay, did we run any carousels? No. Great. That's an opportunity for growth.
Static, what is our best performing? We're just going to pull that and we're going to use it. If it has an outbound click through rate of higher than 1%, let's use it. If it doesn't, let's try something brand new. And then, let's see, have we brand any reels? What were their outbound click through rate? Okay.
Great. None of them were over 1%. Then let's, let's make some new ones. A lot of times when people say something doesn't work, it's because it is. They're not optimizing. So [00:10:00] every real ad I put out, It doesn't mean reals don't work. Same thing with static graphics. If I put out a static graphic of just me, and then it doesn't perform, I can't assume that photos of just me don't perform.
Maybe I need a different photo. So one thing we know is whenever the kids are in any static photos, they perform way better than a photo of just me. So, it's not that static images don't perform well, Without text. It's that I have to get the right image. We've put out reels before that totally bomb doesn't mean that it's the wrong That reels don't work for me.
It means that that hook fell through but a reel of me holding bodhi Crushes it. So how can I lean into these things more? So I think sometimes we're making inferences about our So it's not only about, uh, um, adding, adding styles to your, to your client's accounts and things not working for them, but really it's that one ad didn't work.
It doesn't [00:11:00] mean all those styles don't work. So when we go to create that campaign and set up that creative, we're gonna have one carousel, we're gonna have one static, we're gonna have one reel. And how do we increase the likelihood that it's going to perform. One, we do an ad audit. So inside of conversions for clients, we have a whole step by step process and a sheet to do to find out what's your best performing ad creative.
So if you're not in there, jump in there and grab that. Then we're going to go to their organic social. Are they posting on organically either Tik TOK, Facebook, Instagram, LinkedIn? I don't care what social media platform, we're Let's see where they've been posting most consistently lately, and let's see what the best performing ads are.
I just did this with a consulting client. They weren't running any videos. And I was like, man, this is a really opportunity for us to like really increase Your ads and get a higher click through rate. And what we did with the static is we [00:12:00] went through all their ads because that's all they were running and we pulled the best Performing static images which were not anything close to what they were running now So we pulled that so we didn't have to make static.
We just pulled from the ad account Then with real since we hadn't been running them. I went through The organic and I looked at their reels. I looked at how many plays, likes, that, and I pulled three and I was like, we need to use these. These are the best. This is what I want to use. So then we just use things from their organic.
Now here's the thing, the text on the, The reels didn't work for ads. But what I did say is I want everything on this reel, like the video composition and everything. It was really good. The music and it wasn't licensed music. And I said, but we need to change the text on it to match the ads, but we want to keep the hook super similar.
And so we have to like adjust it. So it's not always going to work for ads, but we can. So I'm going to take the whole concept and just switch it up. And the thing [00:13:00] with reels is it really comes down to your hook. And so go listen to the reels episode and we'll do another episode on copywriting and writing effective hooks.
But the reel we pulled from their organic, we did the same thing with carousel. We went through and saw which carousel posts are performing the best. And we only had one to work with. And I said, let's grab this one and use this one. So for that client, we're going to run with Two reels, a static image and one carousel post.
So that's the creative cocktail is we want to incorporate carousel, static and video as much as possible. And then we're going to see what performs the best. And if it's the reel, if it's the static, it doesn't mean the next campaign, we're not going to use these other ones. We're going to test new hooks and try and then maybe we get to the end.
And after testing for a month and we're like, You know what carousels just do not perform. Well, we're going to remove the carousel. Maybe we do another reel or maybe we do another static based on our findings. [00:14:00] And then maybe we try reels again for another step or the carousel for another step. So I know for us from a lead generation standpoint, carousels, They sometimes work like for the private podcast.
They work really well for the private podcast. They work for lead generation. They haven't always worked for webinar registrations. They haven't always worked, but we still try different things. We're testing, but they work so well when it comes to open cart and we use testimonials. So maybe a type of creative doesn't work for one step of the funnel.
But it does work for another. And so that's why we can never get into this mindset of, Oh, that type of creative doesn't work for my ad account or my client's ad account. Because maybe you just haven't done it in the right format. Maybe you haven't done it for the right, um, hook. Maybe you haven't done it for the right step of the funnel.
And so no matter if you are working with local businesses, you're working with e commerce businesses, you're working with online coaches, [00:15:00] the creative cocktail can work. It just takes testing and it works at every single step of the funnel and it's about recognizing like, Oh, this didn't work.
Wonder why, but not saying that that type of style like real static or carousel don't work for this client. That is lazy marketing. You just haven't got the right format or you haven't got the right, or you haven't put it at the right place of the funnel, but they all work. Metta wants them. So lean into what Metta wants and that's your creative cocktail.
So next time you go to set up a campaign, think, okay, I need a carousel. I need a static. I need a real, I'm going to do an audit. I'm going to go to organic social. And if you don't have any of those, great. Now you have a starting point. You know, you're going to create all three of these from scratch and that's okay too.
Cause then over the next month, two months, three months working with that client, you'll really be able to dial. [00:16:00] The Zen. So my friends, that's your creative cocktail. Let's make it, let's shake it up, put it out, and make more money for our clients and not.
If you want to learn more about really stepping from the ad manager role to the ad strategist role, and you want to go deeper. into how to create ads, copy, creative, and see our strategy octagon where all this plays out. Then send me a DM on Instagram and say, creative cocktail. And let's chat if you're ready to step into that next phase and become an ad strategist.
Until next week, my friends, go out, serve your clients, scale your business, and soar into the success you deserve.