Stop the Scroll: Top Performing Formulas for High Converting Ad Creatives in 2024

Webinar Replay

February 7, 2024

Savannah Sanchez

Founder of The Social Savannah

With over 10 years of experience, Savannah is a Media Buying & Ad Creative Expert working with top eCommerce brands including Dr. Squatch, Blendjet, Gainful and more. With an M.B.A. from Chapman University, she combines her data analytics training with ad creative expertise to provide the best results for her clients.

What you'll learn

Capturing the attention of the consumer seems like a never-ending task. With attention spans getting shorter and content becoming more abundant throughout various platforms.

Key Takeaways:

What ad formats and hooks the top brands are using to scale on Meta and TikTok.
Analyze top-performing ad hooks from 2023, learn the top creative strategies to capture attention and stop the scroll.
How to craft the perfect ad that creates urgency to shop now.

[00:00:00] Zach Murray: Hey, everybody. How's it going? Um, welcome to the second fireside chat of 2024. Um, I'm super, super excited about this one. Last one was like a massive hit. All of you guys like messaging me after, um, just like telling me how much value you're getting, um, from Rory's presentation. Um, and I think this one might actually, um, kind of like outdo what Rory's did.

[00:00:32] Zach Murray: So I'm super excited about it. Um, Before we get into introducing Savannah and getting into presentation, I want everybody in the chat right now to just like span it. Tell me where you guys are calling in from. It's always really cool to sort of like see, um, where everybody's calling in from, um, and yeah, who's actually on the, on the, on the call.

[00:00:53] Zach Murray: So definitely like, uh, span the chat, uh, Denver, Boston, Tennessee, UK, Hawaii, Sacramento. So. Okay, sweet. This is awesome. It's always like super cool seeing all of that. Um, it looks like we're over a hundred people now. So, um, with that, I'm going to introduce Savannah, who's going to be breaking down, uh, sort of the top ad concepts, the top ad styles that she's using to stop the scroll in 2024.

[00:01:18] Zach Murray: And so without further ado, here is Savannah.

[00:01:24] Savannah Sanchez: Hello. Hello. So excited to be here. Wow. The chat is blowing up. I am streaming today from Las Vegas, Nevada, really excited to be chatting with you guys all about my favorite ad formats and hooks that I'm using for my clients to stop the scroll. So I'm going to go ahead and share my screen. Give me a big thumbs up in the chat if you can see my screen.

[00:01:52] Savannah Sanchez: All right. If not, I'll have Zach yell out, but, uh, great. So let's just dive right into it. So who is the social Savannah? So some of you may know me from Twitter or LinkedIn. I've been working with e commerce brands since April of 2020, helping them with their TikTok ad creative strategies and meta ad creatives.

[00:02:18] Savannah Sanchez: I have a small, but very expert team of trained ad actresses and editors currently working with over 40, 40 creators now and 10 editors, and we create hundreds of ads for clients each week. So pretty much my life is going on foreplay and finding great inspiration and doing research about what top brands are doing and trying to utilize some of these top formats for the brands that I'm working with.

[00:02:45] Savannah Sanchez: So foreplay has been just an incredible tool that I've used for competitive research and Seeing what brands are doing on these platforms. I'm also a TikTok marketing partner and one of the top five most popular TikTok creative exchange partners in North America. So I have a very close relationship with TikTok where they refer me to their top advertisers so that I can create ad creatives for them.

[00:03:11] Savannah Sanchez: So I've had the pleasure to work with some of the largest brands on TikTok and Meta, including Wayfair, Built Basics, Shopify, Hydro Flask, Athletic Greens, Farmer's Dog, just to name a few. Uh, currently working with over 50 clients a month, uh, to get them anywhere from two to six ad creatives per week. So turning out tons and tons of ads.

[00:03:34] Savannah Sanchez: So based off of the hundreds of ads I'm making a month, I've put together a deck of the top ad formats from 2023. And specifically I'm going to be sharing the examples that I think are going to be Still beneficial to carry over 2024. So these are formats that have had really great longevity on TikTok and Meta.

[00:03:54] Savannah Sanchez: As you know, we all want formats and ads that are going to scale and have a long shelf life, as they say. So these are formats that worked really well last year and that I'm going to continue to make in 2024. So let's get into it. So let's start out with the solo skit. So this is a really great one, especially for T Talk because it looks super organic.

[00:04:18] Savannah Sanchez: The way you can film this is very low budget, very easy. Essentially it's one person that's playing the role of multiple characters. So in the first one we did for Bumble, she's playing herself as well as her date. In the second app we did for Bill, it's a girl who's playing her boyfriend and her, and the girlfriend.

[00:04:35] Savannah Sanchez: Um, where he's shopping for new clothes and the girl is giving him recommendations. So I really like this ad format because it has typically a really high watch time and also, of course, a great conversion rate. So doing more solo skits. It's definitely something that I'm going to be doing more of in 2024.

[00:04:57] Savannah Sanchez: Next we have the green screen format. So this is a classic ad format and it's something that I've been testing for years now and it still works really well. So whenever I'm working with a new client on meta or to talk, one of the first type of ads that I make for them is a green screen type ad. So you can either green screen over B roll that you take, you can green screen over the website, you can green screen over a Google search of your product.

[00:05:25] Savannah Sanchez: There's really so many ways to use the green screen, but I would say it has to be a staple in your ad account. There's really no clients that I work with that I don't test some sort of green screen format ad for. So test this one if you haven't already. Another classic is the TikTok comment overlay. So essentially you are responding to a question that someone posts as a TikTok comment.

[00:05:54] Savannah Sanchez: You can make a fake TikTok comment to have as an overlay of your hook. And the reason why this works well is that it looks incredibly organic to talk. It doesn't look like an ad. However, I also see that this format works well on Meta. So Facebook and Instagram as well. And then so essentially how the ad works is that the hook of it is that TikTok comment overlay.

[00:06:17] Savannah Sanchez: We're answering a question and the rest of the ad is going into the value props and showing the product. So, so I have been testing for years and one that continues to perform time and time again. So. So you definitely need this classic ad format in your ad account. Another great one is what I ordered versus what I got incredibly popular in terms of a hook.

[00:06:43] Savannah Sanchez: I'm sure you've seen this a bunch on foreplay, but it's one that continues to convert. So essentially the script of the ad is I kept seeing this product everywhere online and I wanted to see if it was worth the hype. Here's the product in real life. I'm testing it out. Here's my favorite things about it.

[00:07:00] Savannah Sanchez: You guys should go and shop now because ads are all under 30 seconds, really just hitting on the best value props of product. You don't want to say too much in your ad to where you're being confusing or giving them too much information. You really want to give viewers just the top three value props of your product, essentially Giving them that social proof of, yes, you may have seen this product everywhere online, but when I tried it in real life, it is actually worth the hype.

[00:07:27] Savannah Sanchez: So this type of scripting is something that I use a lot for ads and continues to be a top performer. This one is one of my favorites. This one is called fake podcast. So this is one of the creators on my team. I essentially sent her a 20 fake. fake microphone from Amazon and she's holding it up with her laptop.

[00:07:50] Savannah Sanchez: So as you can see, all of the examples I'm showing today are low budget, take a very small amount of time to do, but can be extremely effective on Meta and TikTok. So I love this fake podcast format because podcast clips do trend a lot on wheels and TikTok. So it, again, it just looks like it's an organic post in your feed.

[00:08:11] Savannah Sanchez: It doesn't look like an ad. And it adds that social proof of, Oh, someone on a podcast is endorsing a product that it must be good. So highly recommend this format. Very easy to do and extremely effective.

[00:08:28] Savannah Sanchez: Similar to fake podcast is a fake broadcast. So essentially what we did is we airplayed a video that we created and put it on a tv and essentially filmed the tv of the airplay video and we made it almost like a fake news story. So trick for the lowest prices on blue light glasses. And the ad is actually filming the TV.

[00:08:50] Savannah Sanchez: So this really stops the scrolling because people aren't used to seeing a TV broadcast filmed as an ad. It's very interesting. It's something that we see a really high, um, hook or thumb stop rate on. So this is one I would definitely recommend trying as well.

[00:09:12] Savannah Sanchez: Similarly, more TV ads. I saw this on TV, so I bought it. So I work with a number of clients that are on Shark Tank or do TV advertising. And so just having that social proof of, Oh, like as seen on TV or this must be legit because it's on Shark Tank or because I kept seeing everywhere on TV and starting with that hook.

[00:09:36] Savannah Sanchez: of showing the video on TV and then going into the V roll of using the product and all the value props. I've seen this as an incredibly effective ad format, so yes, I saw this on TV, so I bought it.

[00:09:52] Savannah Sanchez: Next we have, I saw this on TikTok, so you can say, I kept seeing this all over my for you page and I wanted to test it out and see if it was worth the hype. You can green screen an existing TikTok video, or you can do a green screen over the TikTok profile of the brand. So this has been a really great ad format, a great compliment to I saw this on TV.

[00:10:19] Savannah Sanchez: It's also testing the iteration of I saw this on TikTok and I tried it so you don't have to.

[00:10:29] Savannah Sanchez: Next we have fun facts. product. So you can say the top five value props of your product. The reason why I like this format is because you can share the most important part about your product or service in a very concise way and a way that is. It's kind of entertaining. People want to see what those fun facts are.

[00:10:51] Savannah Sanchez: So we do find that people watch more of these types of videos. So fun facts about X is one that I would definitely have in your ad account. As you can see in these videos too, we do a lot of mashup concepts, which essentially means that we're utilizing multiple creators, multiple faces inside the ad that adds extra social proof.

[00:11:13] Savannah Sanchez: Uh, there's a lot of people trying it. So it must be good if a lot of people like it, people also can see people in the ad that they relate to more than others. So I have found that utilizing multiple talent in one ad can perform better in some cases than just utilizing one talent. So doing a mashup ad of different creators is extremely effective.

[00:11:39] Savannah Sanchez: Three reasons why this has to be one of my all time favorite ad formats. And that's because it just works. You can share the top three reasons why you should purchase in less than 30 seconds. It's a format that has just been tried and true. And I'm sure you've seen a lot on foreplay because a lot of brands do three reasons why, but they do it because it's effective.

[00:12:03] Savannah Sanchez: So when I'm working with a new client, Three reasons why is one of those styles that I keep going back to over and over again, and one that I will test for any new client.

[00:12:17] Savannah Sanchez: Next we have a comparison ad. So you can do a side by side comparison of a competitor or an inefficient way that you used to do something and how your life has improved now that you're doing it the new way. So I really like the the split screen format in order to show a comparison of. a generic versus I'll build a multi at the first ad or on the second ad, we're showing it used to be so cumbersome to have to cook dog food yourself.

[00:12:46] Savannah Sanchez: Here's how easy it is just buying a farmer's dog and utilizing their dog food. So comparing to a competitor or comparing to an inefficient way of doing something. is an extremely effective ad format.

[00:13:03] Savannah Sanchez: Next, we have the car testimonial. So this is really interesting. I have been collecting data on the ads that we've been doing. And one really interesting data point is that ads that are filmed in a car, testimonial style, are doing better than ads that are filmed in your house, for instance. Something about being in the car just makes it look so authentic and makes it not look like an ad.

[00:13:30] Savannah Sanchez: And it gets people to watch. So that's something that I've been doing for clients is this car testimonial format. Essentially, I'm telling the creators, film the hook in your car, starting the testimonial there you can incorporate other B-roll that's outside of the car, but at least having the hook inside of the car, giving a testimonial, it makes it seem like an influencer on Instagram is just.

[00:13:54] Savannah Sanchez: stopping her drive or in the parking lot and just needs to share something about her favorite product. Looks really authentic. So filming a testimonial in your car is a little hack that I've seen work well for a lot of clients.

[00:14:10] Savannah Sanchez: This one is really cool. This one I like to call phone inception. So as you can see in the example, you are essentially filming yourself in multiple settings with the product and then taking a screenshot on your phone of the last frame in that video and then showing it on your phone in the next setting.

[00:14:31] Savannah Sanchez: So it's a great way to show your product is versatile and you can utilize it in multiple places. As you can see for the earplugs, we're saying you can use it for sleep. You can use it at a concert. You can use it at a football game. And showing all those different use cases in a really eye catching format.

[00:14:47] Savannah Sanchez: So this one takes a little more planning to execute as opposed to a car testimonial ad, but I've seen that the juice is definitely worth the squeeze on this type of ad and one that I've been testing across a lot of clients just, it just looks cool. I think it captures attention and people just want to watch it.

[00:15:07] Savannah Sanchez: Because people like watching cool transitions on TikTok and Reels. So it fits into the content that they're already enjoying.

[00:15:18] Savannah Sanchez: Speaking of fitting into content that they're already enjoying on TikTok and Reels. ASMR is a really popular format, not only on organic TikTok, but also works really well for apps. So you could do ASMR, of course, with sound, whether it's tapping sounds or slurping, or even a visual ASMR of applying sunscreen or doing a really aesthetic unboxing and listening to the sounds.

[00:15:45] Savannah Sanchez: Of the unboxing of the tissue paper or opening a package. So people will stay to watch ASMR ads. And it's something that if it makes sense for a client, I will absolutely test. Um, I also noticed that ASMR ads get the most amount of comments. So I do believe there's some anecdotal evidence that more engagement, especially on TikTok ads, does lead to better performance.

[00:16:11] Savannah Sanchez: And more reach and I get the most amount of comments on ASMR videos. Sometimes it's negative. Like for instance, we had a video where a girl was tapping her nails on a blend jet with her fake nails and we got hundreds of comments. People saying like, Oh, stop the tapping noise. It's so hideous. Or we had someone whispering and people were like, Oh, the whispering is so annoying.

[00:16:35] Savannah Sanchez: Like I hate whispering, but it is that ASMR captured attention, um, whether positive or negative, I do find that having a bit more engagement in the comments usually leads to better performance. So we definitely recommend adding this to your ad account. stealthy text interrupt. So essentially the premise of the ad is that you're filming yourself with the stealthy side of the camera.

[00:17:02] Savannah Sanchez: and you're about to take a selfie when you get interrupted by your best friend that's texting you and asking you, Hey, what was that e bike that you mentioned? Or what was that perfume that you've been using? And you can reply in a voice note, or you can just go straight to the website and posting the link.

[00:17:18] Savannah Sanchez: And And then, um, doing a screen report of the website or showing B roll. We just find that this is a really effective ad format for capturing attention. It's one that did incredibly well during the holidays, because we would do this selfie text interrupt format, and instead it would be like, Bestie, like, guess what?

[00:17:37] Savannah Sanchez: Like, Curabita is having an amazing sale right now. Everything is 30 percent off. Oh my gosh, send me the link. So, it was a really great format, specifically for sales. So one that I'm definitely going to continue testing this year for sure. Another really eye catching concept is writing the hook of your ad on a whiteboard or on a chalkboard.

[00:18:01] Savannah Sanchez: So for the first one that we did for Athletic Greens, essentially what we did is we're writing the value props of Athletic Greens on the whiteboard and then going into the role of Eclipse. And then it's also a comparison ad of showing my old routine versus my new routine. And comparing on a whiteboard how inefficient the old routine was versus her new routine with a G one.

[00:18:23] Savannah Sanchez: So writing it out on a whiteboard just makes it look like it's educational content. It makes people read it a bit more, and they're going to probably pay a bit more attention to the value box or listening out if it is written on a whiteboard for the chalkboard ad. For the blende one, just writing out words on a chalkboard for the hook.

[00:18:43] Savannah Sanchez: Makes people want to stay to see what is the full sentence that she is going to write. People want to see the end of it. And then we go into a very aesthetic, sort of ASMR video of blending weird things. So as you know on TikTok, usually like weirdly, oddly satisfying stuff does trend. So in our ads, we try to follow those sort of trends that trend organically, essentially.

[00:19:12] Savannah Sanchez: So blending, um, crayons or Smashing something or just doing something weird. We usually see like those app formula. So blending some, some crayons in this instance was a hit. Another really effective app format on TikTok in particular is stitch incoming. So essentially what we're doing is we're stitching another video for this brand that we work with, it's called happy biking.

[00:19:39] Savannah Sanchez: So we had a clip of Venus Williams talking about why she created a brand and essentially we edited it as a. With that stitching coming text overlay on top, and then we go into the testimonial regular style ad, but we do see that people end up watching more of the video when there is that stitch incoming warning essentially on the first 3 to 5 seconds.

[00:20:03] Savannah Sanchez: Because they want to see if the person is going to negatively react to the original video or if there's something shocking about it. So instead of just starting with the testimonial, starting with another clip with the stitch incoming overlay has been a really great ad format and one that I've seen work well across a lot of clients.

[00:20:26] Savannah Sanchez: Now that I've showed you the top formats of 2023 and the ones I recommend going into 2024, I want to go through some of my quick do's and don'ts of making great ads. So the first do is keeping the ad production process organized. So as I'm creating over a hundred ads for clients a week, as you can imagine, dealing with 40 creators and 10 editors and client revisions, having an organized process is key to being successful.

[00:20:57] Savannah Sanchez: I like utilizing project management tools like Trello in order to keep the process organized. There's also competitors like Monday, Asana. It doesn't really matter which one you choose. They all essentially serve the same format of keeping things in timelines and just making sure that things are really easy to read, easy to access, whether you're storing things through Dropbox or Google Drive or Notion Notes.

[00:21:21] Savannah Sanchez: Just being organized should be your top priority and that's going to allow you to create ad creatives much quicker and more efficiently as opposed to trying to keep up with random slacks and emails or files and it will get messy really quickly. So focus on building out a great process. Another important tip that I have is building long and trusting relationships with creators and editors.

[00:21:46] Savannah Sanchez: So as I mentioned, I have a team of 40 creators. Now, some of them I've been working with for over two years. So being able to go to the same creators every single week and have them film for different clients that I have has been a really effective strategy as opposed to what some agencies do is they will go and contact random creators every week for different clients.

[00:22:10] Savannah Sanchez: And have these one off transactional relationships. I just find that I'm able to build these long term relationships with creators where I'm going to them every single week for content. Not only do they start to understand what type of styles I'm looking for and what type of footage is effective based off the feedback I'm giving them, but also they're more motivated to create great content for me because they know that if the content's good, that they're going to get more and more work from me every single week.

[00:22:39] Savannah Sanchez: So having that two way relationship with creators where it's mutually beneficial, they see the benefits of creating great content for you, and it's not just a one off transactional relationship. That's been really key for me in building my business. Another tip is look for new ad inspiration weekly. So foreplay has been at the top of my list for tools that have really transformed my process in 2023.

[00:23:06] Savannah Sanchez: I used to have some very inefficient ways of looking for ad inspiration, including just having multiple meta ad library bookmarks saved. I would be manually screen recording from Facebook ads, Instagrams. I saw of ads that I liked and just screen recording it and uploading it to a Dropbox folder. Or I have, I had a Facebook group where I would share ads that I came across.

[00:23:32] Savannah Sanchez: All I have to say is that these ways of saving ad inspiration were really cumbersome, but I absolutely loved incorporating Foreplay into my process. They did not pay me to say this or anything. Uh, I truly have really appreciated the amazing software that they provide and how it's allowed me to find really, really great ad examples for my clients.

[00:23:54] Savannah Sanchez: Another tool that has really helped me in my process is Motion, um, that is for analyzing your creative metrics. So foreplay I use for finding inspiration motion I use for analyzing my creatives to see how they perform look at all the metrics and which ones we need to create iterations off of. So having a great process for finding inspiration and analyzing your creative output is really key.

[00:24:22] Savannah Sanchez: Of course, you want to use text overlays and transitions that are organic to TikTok. Just like all the examples I showed today all had the organic TikTok text looked very native to TikTok. And what I'm seeing is that ads that are designed with TikTok in mind, first and foremost, are still perform the best on Meta.

[00:24:43] Savannah Sanchez: So when I'm creating ads, even for a client, that's just advertising on Meta and not even thinking about TikTok ads, I'm still creating it in the same TikTok style because that's, it's working best on Meta right now. So cause I've heard of TikTok first. Just put those on meta. It definitely doesn't work the other way around.

[00:25:01] Savannah Sanchez: You can't take your Facebook ads that are more polished and kind of look more like an ad and try them on TikTok. I just don't see that working as well as creating something that's really organic TikTok and then throwing it on meta. That seems to be the best process. For editing softwares, my team of editors use Adobe Premiere Pro and After Effects.

[00:25:22] Savannah Sanchez: But if you, I was on a low budget and editing ads myself, I would be on cap cut, cap cut. I've used to make so many ads over the years. It's an app that was created by By Dance, the parent company of TikTok. So you're gonna have all of the native TikTok fonts in there, and. screen screening, all that stuff you need, you can do on CapCut, CapCut also has a desktop app now.

[00:25:47] Savannah Sanchez: So it's like a more intuitive way of After Effects or Adobe Premiere Pro. You can get really far just using CapCut and you don't have to be. Editor by trade to figure it out. If I could figure it out, you guys can figure it out. So definitely would rely on CapCut until you're able to hire a more professional editors that can do more stuff than after effects and whatnot.

[00:26:12] Savannah Sanchez: So some of my quick don'ts don't make ads over 40 seconds attention span on Tik TOK and meta is fleeting. You are lucky if someone even watches two seconds of your ad. So you really want to be concise and keep everything in 30 seconds. Don't forget to add text or release. So always assume that the viewer of your ad is watching without sound.

[00:26:34] Savannah Sanchez: You should be able to watch your ad and completely understand it without sound. I will say sound definitely adds a lot to ads in terms of different effects that you can use. And the music that you use beat matching to the music. So sound can be a really great compliment to your ads, but it also needs to be fully understandable without sound.

[00:26:56] Savannah Sanchez: This tip is really important. Don't assume that your ad actress is a creative strategist slash digital marketer. So something that I'm seeing brands struggle with is they will contact girls on Tik TOK who can film great videos and say, Hey, make me some ads for my product. But they don't give them a specific brief and then they're disappointed with the outcome because they're like, Oh, this doesn't look like the ad that I've seen on foreplay.

[00:27:23] Savannah Sanchez: This is not what I was expecting. So that's why a lot of brands work with me because I know what type of ads work well. You can tap into my team of creators and use me as, as your strategist essentially, but that's where brands get in trouble is that they don't provide very specific brief of shot lists, uh, storyboards, scripts.

[00:27:44] Savannah Sanchez: These are all things that I provide to my creators with very specific examples of this is the shot we need. This isn't this shot. I need to look like this. Here's some ad examples. Here's the script lines that we need, we need you to film this, this and this setting. So you end up getting a ton of footage from these creators and then I utilize this raw footage and I send it to my editors and then I get the editors to play by play of how I want them to edit it into the final act.

[00:28:10] Savannah Sanchez: So keeping it very specific with your brief and your shot list and your scripts. Will make your ads perform so much better. Second to last thing is don't forget to make iterations events performers. That's something that I think we struggle with as marketers. We always want to do the next and best thing.

[00:28:33] Savannah Sanchez: If we see a cool ad format on core play, where we just instantly want to copy it or try a version of our own, but we forget to look inside of our own ad account and make iterations off of our top performers. That's something that I think is, you need a 50 50 split between 50 percent of your effort is creating brand new ideas, utilizing inspiration you're seeing in foreplay, but then 50 percent of your effort should be for making iterations off of your top performers or making tweaks to ads that were low performers, but figuring out if I can change the hook, if I could change the script, if I can change the talent in the ads, can I get more life out of this ad and can I get a better performance?

[00:29:13] Savannah Sanchez: So on a weekly basis, I'm looking at the ads for my clients and changing the hooks on the top performing ads, changing the script, slightly changing the talent, changing the timing, making it 20 seconds of the 30 seconds. Creating these small iterations can unlock so much performance. So you don't have to be creative all the time.

[00:29:32] Savannah Sanchez: You don't have to always be coming up with the best ideas. Sometimes you just need to go into your ad account and make tweaks off your best performers to really see a lot of scale. So I always like to mention, just don't forget about the iterations. They're just as important as trying these brand new cool concepts.

[00:29:50] Savannah Sanchez: And lastly, please stop utilizing copyrighted, protected music and ads. I see it all the time on 4Play, especially for brands that are advertising on TikTok. And I cringe every time I hear a popular song in ads. It's not worth the lawsuit. So, I always like to leave with that tip. Don't do it, even though it's so tempting to utilize these.

[00:30:14] Savannah Sanchez: Top trending tracks. All righty. So that's it for my presentation You can definitely get in touch with me on my website and my socials and I really look forward to hearing All of your questions in the chat

[00:30:32] Zach Murray: on mute. Um, awesome. Thanks for that presentation. Um, and there's a ton of questions that we need to get through. Everyone was kind of like hitting up the chat as you're going through. And so if you're down for it and just kind of hop into these, uh, and hope we can get some answers. Answers for everybody.

[00:30:50] Zach Murray: So the first one was from all Oliver. Um, and he was just curious about advertising, um, higher ticket products on Tick Tock specifically. And if there's like any strategies or those, you know, we're taking

[00:31:05] Savannah Sanchez: higher AOV products. Yeah. Yeah. For TikTok, I would say just keep your expectations low for getting a purchase off of the first click.

[00:31:17] Savannah Sanchez: It's definitely something that should be a part of the customer journey. Like someone sees you from a Facebook ad, they're retargeted on TikTok, they're not coming to Google. So I work with a client that sells high end luxury furniture, it's over 2, 000. And they are advertising up TikTok, but we're looking at other metrics, like add to carts, for instance, something more higher up the funnel as opposed to purchase, because we know that it's very unlikely that someone's going to see a TikTok ad and purchase right then for 2, 000.

[00:31:46] Savannah Sanchez: But it can be a great part of the journey where it's like their second or third touch point that they're seeing an ad and then they finally convert once they see a Google shopping ad or something. So it's a touch point, but it's not, I would say, don't rely on it being like a, uh, like a first purchase from like the first click essentially.

[00:32:07] Zach Murray: Cool. Um, the next one's from Sharon or Shannon, sorry. Um, and she's just wondering what your process looks like for scripting. Uh, your client's ads, using those sheets, you know, kind of, you know, presenting those to the client. Uh, yeah, I'd love to hear your workflow on that.

[00:32:24] Savannah Sanchez: Yeah, I like utilizing Notion.

[00:32:26] Savannah Sanchez: That's something that we've been putting in our workflow over the last year. Uh, I just find it's really It's really easy to keep certain boards essentially for our different clients. And then within the client board, we'll have all of our scripts right now. Um, Google Docs definitely does the job. I've used Google Docs over the years, but I have found that Notion has been my go to tool to keep things organized, especially last year.

[00:32:54] Zach Murray: And, um, so Moa is wondering, How, like how long after sort of testing a TikTok campaign, is it ready to scale? And then what does your scaling sort of methodology look like? Is it, you know, by duplicating AdSense or AdSets or increasing the campaign budget?

[00:33:11] Savannah Sanchez: Yeah, I mean, quick plug, I do have a TikTok ads course built on my website, where I go into a lot more detail, but I can explain in a 30 second answer.

[00:33:20] Savannah Sanchez: But in short, essentially you want to season the pixel, get enough purchase and add to carts on the pixel in order for you to exit the learning phase. And then once you are seeing ads in your assets doing well, then I'd simply add budget onto those assets. And then, uh, try launching new ad sets, different interests, different lookalikes, to see if we can get more scale that way.

[00:33:44] Zach Murray: Has, has that changed at all since you started running on TikTok? Like, has it been evolving or is it kind of like still tried and true from, it's been consistent since you started running TikTok? For

[00:33:54] Savannah Sanchez: TikTok, when we first started in 2020, It was more about having a lot of different campaigns and ad sets, but in the last year in particular, it has gotten a lot more consolidated and similar to meta.

[00:34:09] Savannah Sanchez: Uh, they want you to rely off of their machine learning to choose the targeting, et cetera. So utilizing even just a couple of ad sets and a couple of campaigns of keeping this setup really simple and then putting more budget on a limited number of ad sets is the way to go as opposed to having 50 ad sets all with a 50 budget.

[00:34:31] Savannah Sanchez: You want two assets, each with 500. So keeping it consolidated, keeping the learnings on the ad set level, um, which also just makes it so much more simple to manage and that's what's been performing.

[00:34:44] Zach Murray: Cool. Um, so Nita wants to know when scripting, uh, you know, talent for advertising, like, uh, getting ads, UGC and stuff like that.

[00:34:53] Zach Murray: Um, when it comes to the point that they delivered the assets and maybe there's some tweaks to the B roll, they didn't quite get it right. She's wondering like, what does that revision process look like? Do you always pay for additional revisions? Um, how do you kind of like handle that back and forth?

[00:35:08] Savannah Sanchez: Yeah, I mean, with my creators, I like to set the expectation. I'm going to do my part in terms of providing you with a very detailed brief, detailed script, the shots I need. So I'm doing my part by being organized and telling you up front. Here's what I need. And then on their part, I'm saying, I'm not going to require revisions from you if you follow what I'm clearly laying out for you.

[00:35:32] Savannah Sanchez: So I really try to make it as foolproof as possible. I can find them examples. I'll link out for play boards and different ads of. This is the type of shot I'm looking for and it's either they do it or they don't and it becomes like unarguable. It's like, did you, did you follow the instructions or not?

[00:35:51] Savannah Sanchez: And I think that's where my point about if you leave the brief open ended, then you're going to be disappointed. I think with my creators, luckily I've worked with so many of them for so long that they understand what I'm looking for and they understand the expectation. If they miss something in the brief, I will just kindly point out.

[00:36:09] Savannah Sanchez: Hey. You miss the shot or you miss the script line, uh, and they'll happily go and provide it. So do your part by being organized and clear on your expectations. And then on their part, they're going to be happy that you're not just Leaving things vague and then asking for a ton of revisions when it's not what you expected and then building these long lasting relationships work with creators, then they start to understand.

[00:36:32] Savannah Sanchez: Okay. This expectation. That's what she's looking for. And if I don't do this, then I'm gonna have to refill it. So that's, that's been my process.

[00:36:42] Zach Murray: Um, so talking about like video length and like lengths of ads, Joanna wants to know, you know, is there any sort of, you know, tried and true sort of like lengths of ads that you had, or is it really dependent on the products?

[00:36:53] Zach Murray: Is there anything that you're over utilizing right now in terms of just like runtime and duration?

[00:37:00] Savannah Sanchez: 20 to 30 seconds is a sweet spot. Um, some ads perform well at 15 seconds. I wouldn't say you can get shorter with your ads when it's something that's more visual. For instance, a cute shirt. Everyone can look at a cute shirt and instantly think to themselves, do I like it or do I not? So that ad can be 15 seconds.

[00:37:19] Savannah Sanchez: However, if you're selling something more complex, like a medical testing kit or something where you have to explain the process, explain the benefits, that's going to be extremely difficult in the 15 second ad because it requires that voiceover and explanation. So that might make more sense to be a 40 second ad.

[00:37:38] Savannah Sanchez: You still only want to say the most important parts of your product or service. And then leave the rest of it to your landing page, should the rest of the explanation. You don't want to throw too much information at people. You essentially just want to hook them and get them to the website. And then on the website, that should be where most of the explanation is.

[00:37:56] Savannah Sanchez: So that's my answer to that.

[00:37:58] Zach Murray: Cool. And then in terms of the actual contents of the ad. What do you put more importance on James? James is wondering like the app format and like, that's what your folks, most of your time on, or like the messaging angle and concept.

[00:38:13] Savannah Sanchez: Definitely the app format, the messaging stays very similar.

[00:38:17] Savannah Sanchez: Um, especially if we're working with a product for multiple weeks or months or years, like. For instance, the budget and I'm working with them for years and we create hundreds of ads for them. It's a portable blender. The messaging is really similar for every ad. It's portable. It's rechargeable. It blends.

[00:38:36] Savannah Sanchez: Uh, so we're not really trying to reinvent the wheel of trying to find new messaging angles. But what we're trying to do is figure out what's going to stop the scroll. What's going to get people to the website? What's going to cause intrigue? What's going to stand out in the feed? That's where the real creativity and the work comes in.

[00:38:53] Savannah Sanchez: But in terms of the messaging points, I would say it remains the same.

[00:38:57] Zach Murray: Cool. Um, and Sebastian's wondering if you have any, you know, brands that you look up to where the demographic, uh, is very Facebook focused and like 50 to 55 and up in terms of demographic, is there any brands that come to mind, people who are crushing it, um, advertising to that niche?

[00:39:14] Savannah Sanchez: Yeah, there's a former client called Dermatology, um, it's spelled like Dermatology but without any vowels. And they target women over 40 for skincare and they continually crush it with their ads. Their, their videos are really great. So that's one that I look for. One that I have saved my spider on foreplay as one that I spy

[00:39:37] Zach Murray: on.

[00:39:38] Zach Murray: Three. And Haley wants to know, uh, what's the legality around stitching other people's content?

[00:39:47] Savannah Sanchez: It's a great question. I'm glad you asked it. One thing that you have to keep in mind is that anything that you stitch needs to be a clip that you own. You can't just stitch a random or something trending. So for that example I showed, uh, Serena Willey or Venus Willey, I was talking about a product.

[00:40:02] Savannah Sanchez: That was a clip that we got cleared by the brand because the brand's owned by her. They gave us the clip and then we stitched it. It's like a fake stitch. It's not a real stitch. So you can't just stitch something random. Has to be stitching of clips that you make yourself or that you have clearance for.

[00:40:20] Zach Murray: Cool. Um, Liam is wondering in terms of like, you know, approving creators, getting new creators into sort of like your ecosystem, how do you like make sure the brand safe? And like, do you have a process around filtering, making sure that whoever's creating these ads are like aligned with, you know, what your clients want and things like that?

[00:40:39] Savannah Sanchez: Yeah. So I keep my creator. Small. As you know, like I keep it like under 40. So these are like very highly embedded, highly trained people that I've been working with, uh, many for months and years on end, uh, you can learn a lot from the Tik TOK Instagram profile type of content that they post. A lot of the creators I work with aren't influencers per se.

[00:41:02] Savannah Sanchez: They're more micro content creators that they don't have a large following. But the reason I work with them is because they understand how to get great lighting, how to film authentic testimonial, uh, that I would consider them more like actresses than I would consider them influencers, which I found has been a really effective strategy.

[00:41:22] Savannah Sanchez: So identifying creators that understand how to film great clips. And how to speak authentically to the camera. That's the number one thing I'm looking for. I'm not really considering their reach on their personal profiles as a factor when working with creators.

[00:41:38] Zach Murray: Cool. Um, still, still kind of thinking about creators.

[00:41:41] Zach Murray: Have you ever had clients object to like working with the same handful of creators? Or if it's performing, is that all that matters?

[00:41:48] Savannah Sanchez: Usually if it's performing, it's all that matters. It's kind of the golden rule that clients follow, uh, especially the type of brands I work with. Um, usually if we find a creator is working well in their ad account, they will want to go back to the same talent and utilize them.

[00:42:05] Savannah Sanchez: For different concepts, so we'll see in specific ad accounts. We'll find one talent works really well. So then maybe every other week we're going to use that same talent. And then on the other weeks, we're going to try a brand new talent. So there is a lot of value to finding which creators resonate the best with a brand.

[00:42:25] Savannah Sanchez: And utilizing them multiple times. So that goes back to building these long term relationships with a creator, whether you're an agency or a brand, uh, they almost become a face of your brand and become recognizable in your ad. So when you find that person that is resonating with your audience, you definitely want to go back to them to get more content.

[00:42:44] Zach Murray: Got it. Um, and then I know you actually work at a lot in like health and like beauty and wellness products and stuff like that. So, um, someone commented creative OS. Um, which, like, do you have any, like, checklists or, or, um, sort of, you know, uh, like a process for making sure that you don't get rejections on Metta for, like, body shaming, false promises?

[00:43:07] Zach Murray: What are the guidelines that, you know, you try to, like, stay within to make sure that you don't get imposed?

[00:43:14] Savannah Sanchez: Yeah, I would say staying really familiar with the ever changing policies on TikTok and Metta is so important. Um, as a TikTok marketing partner, uh, they actually hold every, every couple of months, they'll hold seminars for their partners and go through the latest ad policy changes and provide examples.

[00:43:34] Savannah Sanchez: So I'm lucky that I have a really great relationship with these platforms. And so they're, they're also motivated to keep their creative partners on top of any policy changes. Uh, one of the big ones for TikTok that changed was comparisons are allowed now. Um, especially for beauty, foreign actors, that was one that was banned for a long time.

[00:43:54] Savannah Sanchez: That's now allowed. And one that we've seen perform super well on TikTok since that policy change happened.

[00:44:01] Zach Murray: Um, and so obviously like a big part of this talk was like about like stopping the scroll and like hook rate and all that kind of stuff. Um, but we had like two people actually asking, you know, does it always correlate, you know, higher conversion rate, um, as well as like old rate?

[00:44:15] Zach Murray: Um, and then are you independently trying to optimize when you're like going through iterations and stuff? Are you individually trying to optimize like conversion rate as well? Or is it kind of just like. Let's only focus on sort of thumb stock and then everything else should be downstream.

[00:44:29] Savannah Sanchez: Yeah. I mean, my North star is always performance.

[00:44:33] Savannah Sanchez: Like I'm looking at which ads have the highest amount of spend with like a relatively lowest CPA. So I'm always looking at the ads at the highest spend as these are the best ads. I do think that metrics like thumbs off and hold rate are directional. There may not be an exact correlation with conversion rate.

[00:44:52] Savannah Sanchez: I actually see that the highest correlation with conversion is hold rate. So hold rate is the metric. That is how long have you actually watched to the end of your ad? Are you holding them after that? Thumb stop. So that one is a pretty high correlation with conversion. Um, I would say that they're all directional and it's more to form hypotheses around how you want to tweak your creatives.

[00:45:17] Savannah Sanchez: Of course, you're going to want to iterate off of your top spenders and the top performers, but looking at thumbstop and hold rate. And click through rate helps you, especially creative teams, helps them ideate, okay, if I was to take this really, uh, top performing, thumb stopping hook and combine it with elements from an ad that maybe has a weaker hook that has a really great hold rate.

[00:45:40] Savannah Sanchez: Maybe the body of ad number two is better than ad number one, so we can swap it. Put the good hook with the good body and see if that coming together, if that makes top performing ad. So that's how I like to think about it. Cool.

[00:45:54] Zach Murray: I've got like one last one, which I think is a good way to kind of like round it up.

[00:45:57] Zach Murray: And so we have someone that just graduated from college. You know, they started like their first full time job, like in the space, um, they're wondering, you know, what secret end of like industry advice or tips do you like wish that you knew when like starting your career? On the screen, like actually performance around creating ads, like maybe even just like how to progress your career.

[00:46:14] Zach Murray: Um, what would you say is like the number one thing that you wish you had known when you started?

[00:46:20] Savannah Sanchez: Yeah. I mean, I would say getting involved in online communities around direct to consumer marketing has been something that's really helped me. And I would, maybe I'm a bit later, I was a little bit late to the game, Um, that if I was to join these communities in, in college, so essentially Twitter has a really great community of marketers, brand owners that are sharing advice.

[00:46:42] Savannah Sanchez: LinkedIn is now popping off as a place where people are sharing really great tips. So getting involved in those conversations, uh, has something that has really helped me in my own agency region is just posting on there, providing value and then getting involved with other people's. Um, and then from my own experience, I started working at e commerce marketing agency in 2018, and then I left to start social Savannah in 2020.

[00:47:09] Savannah Sanchez: So having two years at a marketing agency where I can look at a really broad amount of clients, see how things are done from the inside, that's working in an agency is, is a crash course in project management, uh, client communication, and also, of course, just like the tech ad accounts and creatives. So that really helped me in my career.

[00:47:33] Savannah Sanchez: Starting at the agency and one that I would recommend for anyone out of

[00:47:36] Zach Murray: college. Cool. Awesome. Well, I think that's a good place to sort of wrap it up and we through all the questions. Um, I just want to give like the floor back to you is like, where can people kind of like contact you and like most efficient way, whether it's like.

[00:47:49] Zach Murray: Twitter, LinkedIn. Um, then I also know that you have some courses and stuff. So where can people find those if they want to kind of continue the education and start kind of learning more? I'll give you kind of the floor to plug what you want to plug.

[00:48:01] Savannah Sanchez: Totally. I'm putting my website in chat right now. My website is the social savannah.

[00:48:06] Savannah Sanchez: com. That's the best place to get ahold of me in the contact form. If you have any questions or want to get in touch about my services. You can go to my website. My website also has my courses. So if you're interested in TikTok media buying, I have a great course on that. Or UGC content creation. If you want to know the ins and outs of creating UGC, that's a great one to look at.

[00:48:28] Savannah Sanchez: And then also check out my ad examples on my website. When you go to my ad examples page on my website, you'll also be able to sign up for my newsletter, which will get you my deck of my top 20 ad formats. There are actually different formats that I presented today, so if you want to get more great examples, you can sign up for my newsletter on my website.

[00:48:46] Savannah Sanchez: And then of course, join the conversation on Twitter. That's where I'm most active. I'm socialindiscoursesavannah on Twitter, or you can find me at socialsavannah on Instagram, and then savannahsanchez on LinkedIn.

[00:49:00] Zach Murray: Awesome. All right. Well, I appreciate you taking the time and walking us through all these ad formats and, and, and, you know, being somewhat like thoughtful with the Q and a, um, everybody definitely go check out Savannah online, follow her on, on Twitter.

[00:49:12] Zach Murray: Um, and you obviously can message me on Twitter as well. If you have any questions or are looking for the replay, we'll be posted an email to you. Um, and yeah, like everything about the event from the slides, the replay will be emailed to you after the event. Um, and thank you everybody joining and I'll see you guys in the next one.

[00:49:28] Zach Murray: See ya. Thank you. Bye. Bye

Stop the Scroll: Top Performing Formulas for High Converting Ad Creatives in 2024

Savannah Sanchez

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