SESSION NOTES #003. Why ugly ads work and 3 other hard truths about Meta Ads.

I've seen it more times than I want to admit. I'm in a meeting with the Digital Marketing Manager and Content Producer. We look at last month’s results.

The smartphone UGC outperformed the art-directed campaign video. The single-outfit studio shot beat the multi-model location shoot. The old scrappy graphic assets outperformed the shiny new brand-aligned ones.

Everyone stares at the slide, soaking it in. We silently accept…

The ugly ad won.

People are on social media to connect with friends and creators, to be entertained and to discover. They are not there to engage with ads; in fact, ads are the price people pay to use social media platforms for free.

Because of this, people have built up filters for ads. Anything that looks overly produced or too salesy gets mentally filed as an ad and likely scrolled past. Ads that look like organic posts are more likely to bypass the filter and earn enough attention to influence an action.

Sadly, polish doesn’t equal performance on Meta.

Here are three more hard truths about turning attention into action.

Simple isn’t one-size-fits-all. It changes based on what you’re selling.

AESTHETICS (fashion, cosmetics, decor, homewares etc.)

Your visual content is doing all the heavy lifting and messaging matters less. Don't overcomplicate it, don't try to sell the functional benefits, don't try to include too many different products in an image or video ad, with these ads it's really as simple as I see it, I like it, I click it.

Winning the aesthetics game is about figuring out what combination of attributes work best to influence CTR outside of the product itself. This could be things like model, pose, composition, colours, background, styling.

Simple looks like: product is the focal point, not covered by logo or text, the background doesn't compete, the cropping is relatively tight and contrast is strong.

FUNCTION (performance apparel, skincare, supplements, appliances etc.)

You're selling a solution to a problem so you're doing more work on the messaging side. You’ll promote functional or emotional benefits, but first you need a hook because your product isn't all about looks. Our brains go: hey that's my problem, that looks like an easy fix, click.

Winning the functional game is figuring out which pain point resonates strongest with your audience and which format delivers that message with the most clarity.

Simple looks like: speaking directly to your audience, presenting a problem and an immediate solution.

You've been told by Meta that "Campaigns using both static images and video achieved conversion lift at a 17% higher rate than campaigns using only one format."

This in my view is an oversimplification. More formats doesn't automatically equal better performance. The part that Meta leaves out...

It's more expensive to serve video ads than static ads so you're immediately on the back foot. Your video now has to outperform stills on CTR to get the same amount of clicks.

If your video ads aren't performing, don't run them just to say you did. Fall back on stills until you find a creator who already knows how to make content that doesn't look like an ad.

And the hardest pill to swallow.

If you've been in the ads game for a while you've no doubt received advice from a strategist encouraging you to speak to elements beyond product - “customer service”, “brand purpose”, “brand beliefs” that sort of thing. Don’t.

It's not the purpose of ads to tell your brand story. People don't care. People will click on products they want, it's that simple. Product-led ads always win, even as you go up the funnel.

YOU should care about your brand. YOU should seek to present products in an elevated way and think about brand identity and storytelling. But you also need to meet people where they are.

Ads are not the place to be mysterious or poetic with your messaging. Keep it obvious what you are selling and save the whimsical vibes for your owned media where attention isn't as scarce a commodity.

Brands with very loyal customers and “cult” followings can get away with doing brand-led or longer form ads because they've already got their audiences hooked. They will bypass the filter. But even then, these brands may get a rude shock when they launch into a new market and their ad creative doesn’t perform.

I'm tagging every ad with its visual features - setting, pose, model, crop - and feeding it all into Claude to find the combinations most likely to win. The insights are interesting!

I have so much more I want to say on creative performance. I have processes I’d like to take you through and reports to share. But like a bad ad with too many messages woven in, I’m not sure I could’ve kept your attention to the end.

So why did the ugly ad rise to the top? It looked organic and was easy to understand. Plain and simple.

Disagree? Hit reply and tell me what I got wrong.

Cheers,

Sarah Arvela Webb

_{Brought to you by my notes app, a road trip down south and a Macca’s peppermint tea.}