Ad creative

Ad creative is half of advertising

Targeting options on Meta and Google have become more automated every year. The platforms now decide much of who sees an ad, using their own signals. What you still control fully is the ad itself: the image, the first seconds of a video, the headline, the offer. That is why ad creative has become the biggest lever most small advertisers have, and why I treat it as part of running campaigns rather than a separate design job.

Good ad creative does three things quickly. It stops the right person, it makes clear what you offer, and it gives a reason to act now. Beauty helps, but clarity sells.

Why the person who runs the ads should make them

In many businesses, creative is ordered from a designer once, handed to whoever runs the ads, and then left to run until it dies. Nobody connects the result back to the idea. When I make the creative for campaigns I manage, the loop is short: I see that the version with the price in the headline gets cheaper leads, so the next round tests price placement further. That loop is where most of the improvement comes from.

If you already have someone running your ads, I can still make the creative. Ask them to share results by version, and the next set will be better for it.

Formats you will probably need

Each service below goes deeper: ad graphics, video ads, Reels and Shorts, product photography, copywriting and company presentations.

Testing instead of guessing

I do not ask you to pick a favourite. I prepare versions that differ in one important way, such as the angle, the hook or the image, and let the ads show which one people respond to. After enough spend for the numbers to mean something, the winner gets new variations and the loser is replaced. Over a few months, this builds a clear picture of what your customers care about, which is useful well beyond ads: on your website, in your sales calls, on your packaging.

Canadian specifics

In Quebec, commercial advertising generally has to be in French, with French at least as prominent as any other language. My creative work is in English, so French versions for Quebec come from your own team or translator. Advertising for health, finance, alcohol, cannabis and some other categories has extra rules, both in Canadian law and in platform policies, and some claims are simply not allowed. Prices shown in ads must be the real price you charge, since the Competition Act targets drip pricing. I check these points before anything goes live.

How creative fits with the rest

Creative is one piece. It works best with sensible targeting, a landing page that continues the ad's promise, and tracking that shows which version brought customers. I run Meta ads and Google Ads myself, so creative can be planned together with the campaigns. For a deeper read, see ad creative that stops the scroll.

Common creative mistakes I see in audits

• Logo first, offer never. The brand is huge, the reason to click is missing.
• Stock photos of smiling strangers. They look like every other ad and say nothing about your business.
• Clever over clear. A pun the viewer needs three seconds to decode, when they gave you one.
• No variation. One image for six months, with frequency climbing and results falling.
• Ad and landing page disagree. The ad promises a price or a free quote that the page never mentions.

Each of these is cheap to fix and usually shows up in the numbers within a few weeks.

What I need from you

Access to your current ads and results, a short brief on your offer and customers, and photos or clips from your business if you have them. Then one person to approve drafts. Three rounds of revisions are included, and the final files and sources are yours.