Does Your Creative Convert? Measuring the ROI of Design
Summary
TLDRIn this panel discussion, industry experts Evan Lee and Brie Bush Lively delve into the intricacies of measuring creative efforts in marketing. They emphasize the importance of understanding audience engagement metrics, such as thumbnail retention and conversion rates, to optimize creative strategy. The conversation highlights the significance of storytelling in creative advertising and the role of design in sales experiences, advocating for a data-driven approach that aligns with business objectives. Evan introduces the concept of a 'creative strategy flywheel,' while Brie discusses the impact of personalization in marketing. Together, they provide insights on fostering a culture of experimentation and continuous improvement within creative teams.
Takeaways
- 🎯 Measuring creative efforts involves focusing on engagement metrics such as thumbnail retention, click-through rates, and conversion rates.
- 📈 The importance of creative strategy is to optimize and make effective ads that resonate with the target audience and drive desired actions.
- 🛠️ Creative teams should be held accountable for performance metrics, aligning their work with sales objectives and growth targets.
- 🔍 Conducting research and understanding the buyer's journey is crucial for creating impactful creative content that supports potential customers.
- 💡 Great design and storytelling can significantly enhance the sales experience, contributing to customer loyalty and business success.
- 🔄 A/B testing should evolve beyond basic elements and consider how variations in creative impact the entire funnel, from clicks to conversions.
- 🌟 Creative integrity can be maintained by adhering to brand guidelines and style guides, ensuring consistency across all collateral.
- 📊 Prioritizing creative can significantly impact campaign performance, with examples like split screening showing its effectiveness in capturing audience attention.
- 🤝 Collaboration between marketing, creative, and sales teams is essential for driving successful campaigns and achieving business goals.
- 🚀 Embracing AI and automation tools can facilitate scalability and enhance creative workflows without sacrificing quality or effectiveness.
Q & A
How do engagement metrics help in diagnosing and improving creative efforts?
-Engagement metrics such as thumbnail retention, thumb stop ratios, hook rates, click-through rates, and conversion rates provide insights into how well the creative content is resonating with the audience. By understanding these metrics, teams can diagnose which aspects of the creative are effective and which need improvement, ultimately leading to the production of better creative content.
What is the significance of the Challenger sales methodology in relation to creative advertising?
-The Challenger sales methodology emphasizes the importance of offering unique and valuable perspectives to customers, which can be applied to creative advertising. By aligning creative content with the principles of Challenger, such as addressing unrecognized problems and providing a compelling sales pitch, the advertising can enhance the sales experience and establish customer loyalty.
How do buyer's journey and sales pitch decks relate to creative design?
-Creative design plays a critical role in storytelling for sales pitch decks. It helps to visually communicate the commercial teaching choreography of the Challenger approach, creating a pit of despair through dark backgrounds and negative stats, and then introducing a new path forward with light backgrounds and positive imagery. This visual storytelling enhances the verbal narrative and contributes to the effectiveness of the sales pitch.
Why is creative considered the new targeting in post iOS 14 world?
-In the post iOS 14 world, ad platforms have limited access to user-level data, making creative the primary way to communicate with the target audience. The creative elements, such as images and copy, provide the algorithm with information about the intended audience, which is crucial for driving sales and ensuring the ad is delivered to the right person.
How can creative testing evolve beyond basic A/B testing?
-Creative testing can evolve by going beyond basic A/B testing by focusing on how different creative elements contribute to the entire funnel, from clicks to conversions to qualified opportunities and pipeline generation. It involves measuring the effectiveness of creative elements like button colors or images in driving business outcomes, not just engagement metrics.
What is the role of data in balancing data-driven strategies with creative storytelling?
-Data plays a crucial role in striking a balance between data-driven strategies and creative storytelling by providing insights into customer behavior, preferences, and responses to different creative elements. This information can be used to inform and refine creative decisions, ensuring that the storytelling remains relevant, engaging, and aligned with business objectives.
How can businesses maintain creative integrity across different collateral pieces?
-Businesses can maintain creative integrity by establishing and adhering to clear brand guidelines and style guides. These documents provide a consistent framework for creative teams to follow, ensuring that all collateral pieces, from ads to social media posts to sales decks, reflect the brand's identity and messaging consistently.
What are some examples of metrics that can be used to hold a creative team accountable?
-Metrics such as thumb stop ratio, click-through rates, conversion rates, and time to conversion can be used to hold a creative team accountable. These metrics focus on engagement and performance, allowing teams to see how effectively their creative efforts are resonating with the audience and driving desired actions.
How can creative teams foster a culture of experimentation and continuous improvement?
-Creative teams can foster a culture of experimentation and continuous improvement by implementing frameworks like the creative strategy flywheel, which encourages research, ideation, and iteration based on data and feedback. Additionally, teams can adopt agile methodologies like creative sprints, which provide regular opportunities for experimentation and refinement of creative work.
What are some key skills or traits that you look for when assembling a creative team?
-When assembling a creative team, it's important to look for individuals who can think critically and creatively, understand and leverage data, and are willing to take initiative and challenge the status quo. Other desirable traits include strong communication skills, adaptability, and a collaborative mindset.
What role does leadership play in fostering a culture of scalability and team building within creative and performance teams?
-Leadership plays a crucial role in fostering a culture of scalability and team building by setting an example, encouraging experimentation, and creating an environment where team members feel safe and empowered to contribute ideas. Leaders should also promote cross-functional collaboration, prioritize learning and knowledge sharing, and provide the necessary resources and support for teams to grow and succeed.
Outlines
🎤 Introduction and Panel Discussion on Creative Efforts
The video begins with a welcoming segment, setting the stage for a panel discussion on measuring creative efforts. The host, Kirsten van Ryan, introduces herself and her role at Superside, a video strategy company. She is joined by two guests, Evan Lee from Motion, a creative analytics company, and Brie Bush Lively from Challenger, a training and development company. Evan and Brie are recognized for their expertise in creative strategy and marketing, respectively. The discussion aims to explore how to effectively measure the ROI of creative work, with Evan leading off by emphasizing the importance of understanding engagement metrics like thumbnail retention, click-through rates, and conversion rates.
📈 The Role of Sales Methodology in Creative Strategy
Brie Bush Lively delves into the concept of sales methodology and its impact on creative strategy. She explains that while a sales process involves a sequence of steps to close a deal, a sales methodology provides a framework of practices and principles for sellers. Brie highlights the importance of the sales experience in differentiating a company and establishing customer loyalty. She discusses the buyer's journey, emphasizing the non-linear and chaotic nature of the process, and the need for creative design and content to support buyers during their due diligence. Brie also talks about the role of design in sales pitch decks, using the Challenger approach as an example to illustrate how design can enhance storytelling in sales pitches.
🎨 Balancing Data-Driven Strategies and Creative Storytelling
The panelists discuss the challenge of balancing data-driven strategies with the need for creative storytelling in advertising. Evan stresses the importance of creative in the post-iOS 14 world, where creative is the new targeting. He emphasizes that creative efforts should align with the algorithm of ad platforms to reach the right audience. Brie adds to the discussion by advocating for holding the creative team accountable to numbers, ensuring that design and marketing objectives are deeply integrated. The conversation highlights the need for creative testing to evolve beyond basic A/B testing to include the impact on sales and growth targets.
🔄 The Creative Strategy Flywheel
Evan introduces the concept of the 'Creative Strategy Flywheel,' a process for consistently producing effective creative work. The process begins with research to build an ideal persona of the buyer, followed by ideation to determine the appropriate look, feel, and hooks for the identified audience. Evan emphasizes the importance of controlling what can be controlled in the creative process and using the flywheel to guide the team's efforts. Brie adds her insights on maintaining creative integrity across different collateral, stressing the importance of brand guidelines and style guides to ensure consistency.
💡 Leveraging Customer Insights for Creative Development
The discussion shifts to how customer insights and data-driven research can inform the development of creative concepts and messaging. Brie talks about the role of creative and design in sales messaging, describing designers as architects of a great sales pitch. She believes that data inspires creativity and is critical for executing effective campaigns. Evan shares a practical example from a D2C brand, Modern Bow, and how their use of split screening in their ads has been impactful. The conversation underscores the importance of understanding customer preferences and using that data to craft personalized and engaging creative content.
📊 Metrics for Holding Creative Teams Accountable
The panelists discuss appropriate metrics to hold creative teams accountable. Evan focuses on engagement metrics such as thumb stop ratio and click-through rates, emphasizing the importance of tracking these metrics to gauge the effectiveness of creative content. Brie adds that while it's challenging to attribute sales directly to creative efforts, focusing on top-of-funnel metrics can help inspire and guide the creative team. The discussion also touches on the importance of cross-functional collaboration and knowledge sharing within the team to drive creativity and performance.
🚀 Encouraging Experimentation and Continuous Improvement
Evan and Brie share their insights on fostering a culture of experimentation and continuous improvement within creative teams. Evan talks about having a framework that allows team members to understand when data matters most and when ideas take precedence. He introduces the concept of 'creative sprints' to structure the creative process and encourage iterative learning. Brie emphasizes the need for leadership to set an example and create an environment that encourages experimentation. The conversation highlights the importance of having the right processes in place to support a culture of innovation and growth.
🌟 Leadership's Role in Team Building and Scalability
The panelists discuss the critical role of leadership in building and scaling creative teams. Brie talks about the need for leadership to encourage collaboration and knowledge sharing, and to create a culture that supports these practices. Evan adds that leadership should empower team members to take initiative and challenge the status quo. He also suggests rotating ownership of meetings to foster a sense of collective responsibility and creativity. The discussion underscores the importance of leadership in driving creative excellence and team performance.
🔍 Future-Focused Strategies for Creative and Performance Marketing
In the final segment, the panelists share their thoughts on future-focused strategies for creative and performance marketing. Brie discusses the shift towards account-based marketing and the potential for personalization at scale. She talks about using ABM software to target specific accounts with tailored content. Evan encourages both creatives and data-driven marketers to learn from each other and to start with small steps to bridge the gap between creativity and data analysis. The conversation ends with a call to action for the audience to implement these strategies and approaches in their teams.
Mindmap
Keywords
💡Creative Strategy
💡Engagement Metrics
💡Sales Methodology
💡Performance Marketing
💡Account-Based Marketing (ABM)
💡Persona Development
💡Creative Testing
💡Sales Experience
💡Commercial Insight
💡Personalization at Scale
Highlights
The importance of measuring creative efforts in marketing and advertising.
Engagement metrics for videos include thumbnail retention, thumb stop ratios, hook rates, click-through rates, and conversion rates.
The role of creative strategy in optimizing and making effective ads.
The impact of sales experience on establishing customer loyalty.
Using design and content to support buyers during their due diligence process and create exceptional sales experiences.
The significance of the buyer's journey and how design can influence it.
Aligning creative collateral and pitch decks with the Challenger sales methodology.
The critical role of design in storytelling within sales pitches.
How creative plays a role in capturing audience attention and generating meaningful engagements in performance marketing.
The importance of creative testing and evolving beyond basic A/B testing to align with sales objectives and growth targets.
Striking a balance between data-driven strategies and the importance of creative storytelling.
The creative strategy flywheel for producing the best creative consistently.
Maintaining creative integrity across different pieces of collateral like ads, social media posts, and pitch decks.
Leveraging customer insights and data-driven research to inform the development of creative concepts and messaging.
Examples of metrics appropriate to hold a creative team accountable to, such as thumb stop ratio and click-through rates.
Fostering a culture of experimentation and continuous improvement within creative and performance teams.
The role of leadership in encouraging collaboration, knowledge sharing, and cross-functional relationships within creative teams.
Strategies for encouraging clients and stakeholders to share metrics and results to improve the development of creative content.
Key skills and qualities to look for when assembling creative teams that drive both creativity and performance.
The impact of emerging trends, consumer behavior changes, and technologies like AI on the importance of creative and performance marketing.
Transcripts
[Music]
hey everyone welcome back from your
deserved break
um I hope you had some time to scratch
grab some snacks and tea some coffee
we're gonna dive straight in with a
panel discussion on the topic I know
that's always top of mine we have two
amazing speakers who will tell us how to
measure their creative efforts uh we
want to hear your questions as well so
please don't hesitate to send them to us
before we get started I'm Kirsten van
Ryan I'm the head of video strategy at
superside I oversee a team of talented
strategists that work with our customers
to create cohesive and effective
approaches to singular video projects or
their overall video strategies for their
brands I'm joined by Evan Lee
um and Brie Bush Lively introduce them
formally uh evenly is the head of
creative strategy at motion currently
motion is a creative analytics company
that combines visual contains with
performance Matrix to help growth teams
improve their creative strategy Evan has
been in the industry working with
companies like shoelace and Manulife he
is passionate about creative advertising
and understanding the benefits of
creative strategy and the process around
it in order to optimize and make
effective ads this conversations right
off Evans alley and I'm really excited
to welcome him welcome Evan thank you
thank you excited to be here everybody
and our second speaker is Brie Bush free
is the VP of marketing at Challenger um
a training and development company
transforming the sales experience
through the well-recognized Challenger
sales methodology if you haven't read
their approach it's a must read
uh free enjoys writing so her creative
um on the copy side is always she's
always had a deep appreciation for great
design and that mix of her love of copy
really um comes together in the creative
work I'm excited to welcome you to the
session too you're a great clip for the
topic we're very spoiled to have you
both
um before we dive into the session I'm
actually going to hand over the floor to
Evan to give us some thoughts on how to
measure our Roi on creative
awesome thank you Kristen really
appreciate the intro everybody I'm so
excited to be here today thanks for
taking time out of your days uh when
we're talking about measuring creative
there's so many ways to take it take
this in directions and honestly we're
gonna we're gonna unpack them some more
but the high level when I can start to
break down like measuring creative I'm
uh I'm an ad guy at the end of the day
so I come from like running these ads
doing everything I do there but the
other counterpart of of why it's so
important is creative team members so
creative team members are ultimately
producing the visual assets that are
going to live in the specific ads that
ad people might run at the end of the
day and once those are in platform I
like to think of it as engagement
metrics and then bottom of funnel
metrics so I'll get into a lot more
detail later probably some of these
questions that come up but engagement
metrics if we're talking videos include
things like your thumbnail retention
your thumb stop ratios your hook rates
your click-through rates your conversion
rates and once you can understand
metrics like those it becomes easy to
diagnose and then figure out a solution
for how to produce the best creative so
that's a high level
um of what we'll get into today but
that's my end thanks Kristen
awesome Bree do you have any thoughts on
this topic
I do lots of thoughts on this topic and
thank you for the lovely intro
um Evan you just listed off a lot of
great ad performance metrics
um you know I've got a little bit of a
Spiel to help you kind of understand
where I'm coming from into this
conversation so I do want to level set a
little bit at the start
um as Kirsten mentioned I work for a
company called Challenger if you've ever
heard of or read the book The Challenger
sale that's us Challenger is a sales
methodology and since I'm in a room full
of marketers and creatives figuratively
I'll give you a quick definition of a
sales methodology where a sales process
is more the sequence of like steps or
stages or tasks that a seller would
follow to close a deal a sales
methodology is more of a framework of
practices and principles that outline
how sellers should approach the sales
process so think of it as the mindset
and the skills a seller brings to every
conversation with a prospect or buyer
when the Challenger research first came
out the findings were pretty
groundbreaking the research showed that
things like your brand reputation and
your product and your price those are
table Stakes you have to have a great
brand and a great product or else No
One's Gonna buy what you're selling but
what truly differentiates a company and
establishes customer loyalty is the
sales experience do you offer unique and
valuable perspectives on the market or
industry are you helping your buyer
navigate Alternatives and avoid
potential risks is it easy for your
buyer to buy from you the punch line on
that research was it's not what you sell
it's how you sell
so what does this have to do with design
I have two points for you the first is
around the buyer's journey and this is
most applicable to B2B this is the
visual we affectionately refer to as the
spaghetti slide we know the buying
process is not linear it's chaotic with
a thousand different touch points before
a buyer actually makes a purchase and we
also know that buyers are 57 of the way
down the path to making a decision
before they even contact sales
your potential customers are out there
researching learning trying to form an
opinion before they even start a
conversation with you and therein lies
the first creative unlock how can you
use great design and content of course
to support buyers during their due
diligence process and create that
exceptional sales experience from the
very first touch point with your brand
you should be looking for ways to answer
the questions that you know your buyers
will have using a variety of different
formats channels Etc before they talk to
sales to make sure your product stays at
the top of their consideration set So
speaking specifically to design some
examples of that might be an explainer
video for competitive Alternatives which
you also repurpose into a series of
visual social media posts or ads a
checklist in the form of an infographic
you you get the gist and to take it even
further since we are here to talk about
performance measurement and Roi you can
evaluate whether the consumption of this
call it buyer FAQ content contributes to
a shorter sales cycle look at buyer
Journey velocity or funnel velocity
against the amount and type of content
consumed are you seeing shorter time to
conversion by tracking the number of
days it takes from someone to go from
visitor to lead lead to opportunity and
so on when the person interacts with
this visual FAQ content because in an
Ideal World if the buyer is getting all
their questions answered via marketing
campaigns and content prior to talking
to sales they'll come in more confident
in their decision to buy from you and
hopefully it'll be an easier and quicker
sale
second point on connecting great design
with the sales experience I want to talk
about the sales pitch deck now the
Cornerstone of the Challenger approach
is the commercial teaching choreography
it's not as important what framework you
use your sales team is using in their
pitch conversations I'm just using ours
as an example but what this will
illustrate is the critical role that
design plays in the storytelling of a
sales pitch so let me really quickly
explain what's going on here the
Challenger way to pitching your product
follows these six steps you start with
the warmer where you show the customer
you understand their business and
industry and establish credibility then
you move into the reframe where you
expose something the customer is missing
about their business it's an
unrecognized problem an incorrect
understanding of the cause of the
problem or maybe even an underestimation
of the size of the problem and then we
go into these two middle pieces of
rational drowning and emotional impact
and notice where they sit on the
emotional Spectrum on the left there we
call this the pit of despair in rational
drowning Challengers are throwing a
bunch of data points at the prospect to
quantify the full cost of allowing the
problem to persist or rationalize why
the status quo of their business problem
is intolerable and once the worry starts
to build we hit him with the emotional
Story how the problem looks and feels
and what will happen to their business
if they don't change when we coach our
clients through developing sales
collateral and Pitch decks and marketing
campaigns to align with this approach
design plays a really big part in
creating that pit of despair we use dark
backgrounds darker imagery for those
negative stats in the rational drowning
big bold red numbers or whatever
negative emotion color is is on brand
for you and then when you've you've
convinced the buyer that they cannot
afford not to solve this problem and
doing nothing is not an option you
introduce A New Path forward that leads
them directly to your solution and
throughout these sections you're using
light backgrounds bright imagery Airy
friendly happy photography things like
that you need the visual story in your
pitch deck to enhance the verbal story
that you're telling the buyer
and then once you've built this you can
lean on your sales team or your friends
in marketing operations or Revenue
operations to help you measure its
Effectiveness add something to your CRM
that tracks which pitch deck a seller
uses at an opportunity to see what
drives bigger deals and faster close
times
these are definitely tougher metrics to
track than something like add clicks or
or video plays but in a demand gun
forward marketing world or function
they're necessary to using business
impact to drive creative decisions
so I'll leave I'll leave you with that
to Noodle on while we start getting into
I think some q a right now so I'll pass
it back to Kirsten
thanks Bree it's such a great
perspective to see how you're tracking
metrics within the sales process it's
it's a little bit different from I think
what we're used to in the digital
advertising World
um I guess then leading into that my
question is um to Evan Howe does
creative play a role in capturing
audience attention and generating
meaningful engagements in ads and in
Performance Marketing
really great question and for uh all my
performance marketers here or anyone
else who might be uh creative is the
number one lever of success when it
comes to everything Performance
Marketing when it comes to everything
paid ads and really what we're saying is
in like a post iOS 14 World creative is
the new targeting and why that's such a
true statement is basically we are
giving like ad platforms who have strong
algorithms the information needed to
determine who that ad goes to so what
that means in like layman terms is if I
have a thumbnail and I include my face
but let's say we are targeting
um I don't know who it might be men who
are 50 years old I'm given the algorithm
incorrect information to go and find the
right person so that creative does not
pair up with who I actually want to go
after so at that point my ads aren't
even going to deliver to the right
person so when you think about the
importance of it the entire thing is
storytelling the entire thing is is
giving the algorithm the right
information to drive sales for you uh so
that's why in a short version uh why
creative is the most important lever
tactics you've seen employed to
effectively align brand messaging with
sales objectives and growth targets
yeah great question I alluded to this a
little earlier but uh creative testing
needs to evolve
most people get it when it comes to the
basics of A B testing these days you you
change the the color of a button on an
ad and see which one gets the most
clicks but tomorrow's marketers will
have to go beyond that it's not just how
many clicks you get from that button
color it's how many clicks from that
button turned into a conversion on a
landing page that turned into a
qualified opportunity and how much
pipeline are we getting from that
opportunity the the button color is a
bit of an over simplified simplification
but it illustrates the point can you use
creative testing to evaluate whether
blue buttons attract in-market leads
that generate pipeline more than green
buttons
I think this idea of taking your A B
test all the way down the funnel does
require your creative and design
functions to be deeply embedded in your
sales objectives and growth goals as an
example Challengers marketing team is
accountable to marketing sourced
pipeline not mqls not engagement metrics
from like a high level North Star
um measurement of course we still we
still track those things to assess
creative But ultimately it's all about
pipeline generation and closed one
revenue and I hold my design team just
as responsible for meeting our pipeline
goal as I do demand gen and product
marketing I love that anyone else on the
team
that's awesome that's a that's a really
interesting approach
um just switching topics a little bit
even in today's competitive advertising
landscape how can you advise businesses
to strike a balance between data-driven
strategies and the importance of
creative storytelling there's always a a
tug of war um in a business around that
I love that question I'm super excited
to answer it I just wanted to add a
little bit of commentary to what Bree
had mentioned because like I just want
to make make sure the audience is like
tracking like that was gold in there
right like basically holding the
creative team accountable to numbers so
that could seem intimidating but what
we're really doing is like great giving
that creative team a bigger seat at the
table you're not like a pencil Pusher
anymore at the end of the day like
you're really just crushing it so Bree
Kudos that was awesome I love it
on on my end to get back to Kristen's
question there like highly competitive
landscape how can you strike a balance
the big thing for me is like controlling
what you can control and that's your
workflow so what I mean there is
ultimately something I hear all the time
is like Evan I need to make something
what the heck do I make where do I start
in the grand scheme of things I believe
I have a slide that I can share with you
all on this one but I think of it as the
creative strategy flywheel if you follow
these steps you'll be in a spot to
produce the best creative consistently
so what I mean by that is if we extract
ourselves from like sitting down and
what do we make tomorrow we have to
start in our first step of the process
which is actually research so research
involves things like combing through
different reviews we have combing
through comments we have on organic
social our tagged posts and everything
in between because what we're really
doing with research is building that
ideal Persona who is our buyer and how
are we going to go after them once we
conduct our research this is where we
can continue through the flywheel when
we talk ideation it's like what's the
appropriate look and feel what are the
appropriate angles and what are the
appropriate hooks to match up with the
Persona that we've gone against and you
can see here here through this entire
funnel what you've really done is that
you've emphasized the research to
determine who was the right buyer for
you and once you have that information
with options like before and after five
star review this or that any type of
creative concept you have you can
manipulate that to make sure you're
going after the intended audience and
then following the rest of this flywheel
that we see here so that's how I think
about it uh Kristen I hope that helps
I I like that it's a nice marriage of
customer pre-data and then looking at
how you can tell a story beautifully to
that audience
um Bree there's a question that's come
up um from Kate how are you maintaining
creative Integrity throughout all the
different pieces of collateral like the
ads socials and decks and I think
perhaps um even if you have some
thoughts here too
yeah I can uh take a stab at it first
and then Evan can pick up from there uh
I think this boils down to it may seem
very simple but your brand guidelines
and style guide I think you you need to
have that
understood agreed upon and documented in
in a way that provides the right guide
posts for Creative strategy design Etc
and then you're able to execute across
any different number of channels that
you know
that you need to within those those
guide posts so I think that's the the
most important guiding principle there
is is making sure that you have that
well documented and understood across
your team and across the the company as
a whole from top down because we all
know that Executives can get real
nitpicky about
design choices but if you have something
like a style guide to refer back to
you're good to go
I think I think Brie hit a nail in the
head like the only other thing I add is
just like when we when we I guess it's a
it's a different lens to look at it
through but basically the the style
guide is a handshake agreement I think
of like on brand as a sliding scale
right there could be a world where it's
like completely off-brand but all you
care about is sales and it's like are we
cool with that as a company answers
probably no but we have to be on the
same page right some type of style guide
and brand guidelines will give you that
insight
awesome
um and even looking at creative
performance
um and creative in a campaign can you
think of any examples where the priority
the prioritization of creative can has
significantly impacted the overall
performance and what are the key factors
that have contributed to this
yeah good question I can share one that
comes to mind for me I I can't give
numbers folks so I apologize but in the
chat is everybody familiar with like a
Facebook ads library or Tick Tock like
content Center type of thing
I'll let her I'll let it roll through a
little bit maybe not maybe yes okay well
regardless Facebook ad library is a
really good place to just initially
conduct some research to know what's
going on so uh a d2c brand that comes to
mind for me is modern bow not sure if
anyone's heard about them but they sell
some really cool jeans in the grand
scheme of things and when you're looking
in Facebook ad Library what it allows
you to do it allows you to see like how
long ago something was launched and if
it's currently active or not so a really
cool thing that you can start to do is
like if something was launched two years
ago and it's still live guess what it's
crushing it like we know that right so
the cool thing about Martin bow when
I've gone through we work with the team
but when I go through their Facebook ads
library of what gets uh quite
interesting is you'll notice common
themes across the board that are working
quite well one that I can share that I
know has been impactful for them is the
split screening of different creatives
split screening is typically thought of
as like before and after so it's like
this is your previous world this is the
new world but the way that they were
leveraging split screen split screens
it's quite interesting like they were
literally just focusing on on one side
the genes itself in a really close
version of that and on the other end the
reviews associated with it so they're
just taking that same amount of real
estate and making sure that they have
way more information for everyone to
share so that's one that I saw recently
when I was combing through my nerdy
Facebook ad library to figure out what's
going on there
I like that that's a great hack
um and then Brie in terms of customer
insights um how are you leveraging those
and data-driven research to inform the
developments of Creative Concepts and
messaging to enhance performance and
drive business results and I think a
little bit tying into Evan's flywheel on
how how the process can work how are you
leveraging that within Challenger yeah
you took the words right out of my mouth
because I I love this question the first
thing I thought of was what Evan was
just talking about I loved what she said
about especially the early the Early
steps of that flywheel and the research
and then also coming all the way back
around on the other end with the
analytics and how that plays into your
Creative Concepts messaging design Etc
uh I like this question a lot because it
gets to the idea of a data-driven design
culture someone once asked me what what
do I think is more important ideas or
data it was and it was actually my
current leader and Co a challenger Ally
when she was interviewing me for this
job which tough interview question am I
right
um to this day I feel like my answer
waffles between ideas or data depending
on what side of the bed I woke up on
that morning but
um I get a sense that some creatives and
designers feel that data stifles
creativity but it's actually the
opposite in my opinion data inspires
creativity and what you should take away
from what I said earlier about the role
of creative and design in your sales
messaging is that like designers are The
Architects of a great sales pitch when
you're mapping your buyer's journey and
allowing your ad experiences with it
designers are The Architects of the
story you tell there too and I think the
customer insights and the research that
you extract at the start and throughout
the campaign as you're optimizing are
critical to executing against the the
concepts and messaging and Design
designs that go along with that campaign
so I think that's what I would say about
that topic
cool
um and then a question that has come
from Whitney in the comments uh what are
some examples of metrics that are
appropriate to hold a creative team
accountable to
I was just gonna let you in to like
round out the round out the uh the
experience there just like managing the
team and how they can be the Architects
on my end when we're thinking creative
teams I like to keep it more engagement
metric focused so what we're starting to
look at there is like if we produce a
video have we effectively gotten people
to stop their Scrolls so what's like a
thumb stop ratio threshold and it's like
let's gauge the team off of that we can
continue that down the funnel to say
like have we gotten the click-through
rate we're happy with
um sales is harder just because
attribution is always a little bit
tricky but I focus on those top of
funnel metrics that the team can get
inspired around and ultimately like
build their creative around
um and then we're just looking
how to develop cross-functional
relationships within the team like do
you have any strategies right
initiatives that have been successful in
driving that collaboration and knowledge
sharing within a creative team
yeah great question I think
accountability is huge here if you don't
make time for Learning and knowledge
sharing it won't happen
it's also top down as Leaders it's our
job to create a culture that supports
collaboration and knowledge sharing
some tips that immediately come to mind
schedule it a a predictable and
recurring event completely dedicated to
something like this is great for
accountability and also setting
expectations
acknowledge and highlight when it
happens we love sharing wins and
learnings in our team meetings and then
make it fun we've done something called
teach me something dope not just for
Creative teams but for all teams and it
was a hit so that's those are some ideas
that I can share
I love those
um and then just Evan looking ahead what
emerging Trends or changes in consumer
Behavior do you think will have the most
significant impacts on the importance of
creative and Performance Marketing
uh yeah lots of things like looming
recession iOS 17 anything that comes out
there is always uh always a little bit
of an uncertainty but I think a big
thing is um know your business metrics
it's like where do you need to like
achieve a mirror or whatever success
metric you look at that's going to keep
you profitable and then when we're
thinking about like developing creative
specifically it's a boring answer but I
ultimately come back to like you control
what you can control which is that
process so that's why I lean so heavily
into that creative strategy flywheel
more or less
cool and I I guess the question to you
both is how do you Foster a culture of
experimentation and continuous
Improvement within your teams
um particularly adapting to the changing
Dynamics
um and really identifying the scalable
approach to your creative work
yeah I can jump in quick here so on my
end like I really like the Frameworks
just having a general framework that
people can get behind and when Brie had
gotten that question during the
interview it's like do you care about
data or ideas I love that question I
feel like I want to start asking people
that but something that comes to mind
for me is like giving people permission
to understand like when does data matter
the most versus when do ideas matter the
most so the initial like high level
framework that I walk through is hey
team are we focusing on like a net new
creative so we have a Persona let's
figure out something new to go after
them with so it's like we get a chance
to throw things at the wall and
prioritize what makes sense but once
that creative is live in the ad account
that's what we can shift from net New
Creation to iteration Instead This is
where you have a ton of data available
to then say okay let's break down the
data points or the modules of a video to
understand where we should make a change
Based on data so having a framework like
that allows the team to like understand
which part of their brain they're
tapping into a little bit more and how I
typically wrap the this into a nice
present or a gift is uh with a an agile
methodology essentially so I call them
creative Sprints and that's where you're
determining whatever Cadence it might be
based on capacity and spend of how
frequently are you going through that
flywheel could be a two-week Cadence
could be a four-week Cadence and you can
layer on net new creative as well as um
iterations a bunch of stuff I can talk
about later but yeah that's that's what
comes to mind for me yeah I think that's
huge that's such a great way to
structure it and you know having some of
those repeatable processes the the idea
of a creative Sprint
um it it helps create that culture right
you you can you can say it as much as
you want and encourage experimentation
but if you don't have the right
processes parameters that allow for that
you're not going to be able to actually
see see people taking advantage of that
that uh and and doing those experiments
so I think that's a really really great
piece of advice you just shared Evan
awesome
cool um and then just looking to
um
a question in the comments I'm from
Christy so can you provide guidance on
how we can encourage our clients and
stakeholders to share metrics and
results in order to improve development
of creative content assuming Christie's
in the creative team that doesn't
regularly share that
yeah from an internal stakeholder
perspective since you know I'm I'm an
in-house uh marketing leader
it there's a there's a need for
transparency and close collaboration
with you know marketing operations or
Revenue operations and you know it
requires some some sales and marketing
alignment which I know is a cheesy
buzzword but something that we all
should be striving for
um
the right
tracking mechanisms in place in you know
your CRM or in you know all the way down
the funnel when I was talking earlier
about like some of those sales metrics
you're gonna have to work with those
teams and collaborate for people to
report back on those things it's it's
challenging and you have to put yourself
out there to kind of extend and and meet
halfway on those things but it's worth
it because again you're getting back to
how those the the business impact of
your creative and design and and
campaign decisions so it's it's really
important to to make that a priority
anything you would add to that Evan
trouble Tech partner standpoint honestly
have a Shameless plug to views motion
like we'll make it look really good for
you and you can see what's going on but
uh to extrapolate it Beyond motion I
take it back to like measurement of
creative teams that Brie was talking
about and I shared some metrics around
it's like understand the metrics that
you want once you know those you'll
realize or the client will realize
you're not asking for the world so you
can start to get information that breaks
down just creative performance in
general and that should give you a place
to start is what I'd say
cool and speaking of teams um do you
have any tips or key skills that you
look for when you're assembling your
creative teams to drive both creativity
and performance in your areas
I definitely do the one is like I I need
a it's somewhat of a unicorn hire that
can be trained but I need someone who
can like think in data or understand
data or has a want to understand data
but can also be creative so it's like
literally leveraging both sides of the
sides of the brain that someone uh could
be a project manager we call it a
creative strategist app motion
um but that's what I'm really looking
for typically
yeah that's huge I think also for me
it's uh
someone who
is willing to take the initiative to
bring forward new ideas there's a great
comment in the chat about the we've
always done it this way attitude and how
you know designers need to be willing to
come forward with something that
disrupts the way that things have always
been done and I'm looking for someone
who's who's willing to challenge me
challenge others in the organization to
try new things and to bring forward
those experiments because you know I
have a lot of ideas but I only have so
many and there's a lot of things that
someone who is a designer first is going
to bring forward that I hadn't thought
of and so you know I want I want to look
for team members who are willing to to
put themselves out there and try those
experiments instead of going with the
safe bet and I think that's a special
kind of person
that's great and and sticking to the
team what role do you think leadership
plays in fostering that culture of
um scalability and team building within
the creative and performance teams
yeah
yeah
um I I think it I mentioned this a
little bit earlier you know it comes
from the top down so you have to
um set an example in this case of you
know encouraging that kind of
experimentation scalability all those
things that you just mentioned
um and and be the one bringing forward
those Concepts too
um you know you gotta get the brainstorm
started so it as your job you know as a
leader you create the right space for it
maybe you're setting aside time for
those kinds of things and and you you
start the brainstorm and then you let
everyone have a seat at the table and
bring forward their ideas to
um that's that's what I would say
love that and in my end like I have a
bias for startups like I love the
startup world and small tight teams so
take that with a grain of salt to
everybody but I I really lean into like
what role does leadership play into it I
lean into the ownership that brie is
talking about so I really like to think
of it as like individual team hour team
members who feel safe enough and
empowered enough to come to the table
with those ideas and leadership's role
in that it could be as like I don't I
don't I don't like dictatorships more
than anything but what I like to do is
is rotate ownership of meetings so it's
just like hey I might run one and here's
a general structure we could follow but
Brie here's another one you jump in What
are some ways you think we can make it
better get everyone thinking so not um
everyone doesn't only own hey this is my
contribution to the meeting but they can
think about like how would this be done
better if it was to fall into their
world again startup heavy but uh
thoughts that come to my mind
G and or you can streamline and use
automation tools to drive creative
workflows Evan do you have any thoughts
on how those kind of tools and the new
technologies particularly around AI can
start to facilitate scalability while
maintaining the creative Excellence
within your team 100 so I talk a lot
about research right like it's like
build your personas and it's like what
angles do we use and all of that kind of
stuff so I never see at least I might
have a blind eye to it but I don't think
AI is ever going to replace a designer
at the end of the day we've seen some
stuff that doesn't look great but
ultimately where I think AI can really
Empower designers is you can just like
prompt a chat gbt to say hey go collect
all of my reviews off of Amazon and rank
it from Five Star to one SAR so you're
just starting to see what people like
you can tell the scan your website or
comb through a bunch of data that's
available to build out those personas
and that just gives you a starting place
for who you're going after and then all
of a sudden you get to walk in be that
creative person and say oh it's our
already available this is what I can
pair them up with so there's a I think I
think when we're talking AI there's a
lot of opportunity that's one of them
that comes to mind for me
yeah and we one of the things we talked
about when we were prepping too is the
idea of like personalization and
personalization at scale where AI can
play a huge role in uh in enabling that
and making making that possible in
Creative campaigns and serving you know
different kinds of ads based on the the
viewer right something that immediately
comes to mind for me is a Spotify
wrapped every year they they aggregate
your listening activity into like an
Instagram story-ish set of videos with
your top artists and your most listened
to songs hours spent listening I think
they even started doing your mood based
on what you listen to which I will not
share mine because it's embarrassing but
super personalized but also super
shareable right the fact that it's been
designed to be shared on social media is
great for reach but also like the
community engagement and a sense of
belonging within that community
and you know it's it's all algorithmic
AI powered it you know it's something
that everyone can start uh tapping into
in their own creative especially with
the proliferation of AI tools that can
help enable some of this like
customization personalization in your
creative in your ad campaigns
nice
um I think we've got time for two more
questions so
um I'm just gonna throw it out and
whoever would like to have a go we can
answer so in terms of scalability what
considerations are you keeping in mind
when expanding into new markets
um or targeting different customer
segments with your creative efforts
like just like with with the performance
marketing side of things like we're
lucky to get data back in the grand
scheme of things right so there's two
parts to it there's the creative itself
but there's also just like understanding
the algorithm and like what information
you're getting back right so when we
start on the data end if you're slowly
making your way into new markets you can
start to see like where is Facebook or
meta for example determining to spend my
budget I might open it up to three
geographies but I notice budgets only go
on a two of them so that means I have my
work cut out for me to get into the
other ones or um like I basically need
to reevaluate my creative approach so
the data can start to tell you what's
going on and then creatively speaking it
just depends in in like where in the
world you're starting to break into I've
said personas a million times already
because I believe in them so much it's
just like understand who you're going
after and those geographies and then
it's the basics so it's just like when
you develop the creative make sure it
matches the language in the areas which
will help deliverability of your ads
um so the short version of that is like
the data will help determine like what
people are or where the algorithm wants
to lead into you for you and then
depending on the data you can make
changes based on Persona language
everything in between
personas are huge there too my mind in
that question went to probably because
we just recently had a go to market
product launch so that was this is this
is a at the front of my mind based on
recent experience but uh it really does
get it gets back to that defining those
personas if you are launching a new
product or launching a product to a new
customer segment or New Market
um you know really huge to Divine that
from the get-go and get into not just
the demographics but the the
psychographics of that person what what
do they care about what you know what I
hate saying what keeps them up at night
but you know what what are the the
problems that they're facing and that
are most important to them and and
speaking to it um the the choreography I
talked about earlier uh we call it a
commercial insight and that's that's
really what we're getting to in that
commercial Insight is is nailing the
messaging down to
um that that business problem that
they're facing and what they may not
know about it and and that really is
kind of a critical part of our Persona
building process too um so that I think
is is the the first step that has all
the the downstream impact into the the
creative implications messaging
implications everything like that
cool um this
question here in the comments from
Jacqueline I think more conservative
Industries how do designers challenge
without disrupting relationships oh
that's that's a tough one
um Evan do you have any thoughts on that
on how designers manage up essentially
during this process is kind of how I
think about it right so slower
Industries just to Define it a little
bit more what I think of are like
um maybe maybe large B2B companies or
like financial institutions or
commercial real estate like falling into
that Worlds the biggest thing that I
always try to recommend is like don't
just be a pencil Pusher all of the
briefing systems and all the processes
in place are ultimately set up for you
to receive a brief and then create
against that in a templated format right
and the biggest thing that I always
recommend as a starting place is like to
play the game of pencil Pusher receive
the brief but is there any way that you
can make the template like maybe five
times better five times is a lot sorry
five percent better coming in there so
so diving and diving in and thinking
about it like that but ultimately over
time what my hope is at least is when I
talk about left brain and right brain at
the beginning of this conversation is
that the designers are are confident
enough and able enough to actually build
relationships with like the marketing
managers who are submitting some of
these requests how are they thinking
about the world how does that then shape
into design so now that context is going
to allow you to make better
recommendations that are a lot more
informed and hopefully you feel more
confident about what you're recommending
in that case so a little bit of what I
think of
yeah and let the
let the creative testing and data speak
for it you know if someone wants to tell
you we can't we've never done this
before so no uh you say well how do you
know until we test it it's like bring It
Forward do a task against a control
group you know follow get a little
scientific with it and and let that you
know decide whether it's something that
you should continue doing especially in
those more conservative industries that
might be resistant to change or not as
open to new ideas it's like
we don't know until we try and and let
the audience tell you what you should be
doing
and I think that also goes back to a
previous question that an audience
member had asked like how do we get data
back from these people we work with so
in that instance we spoke about clients
but this is also another instance where
your client is technically like a
marketing manager or someone else right
so that goes back to understanding like
what metrics that you would want to ask
for because once you make that request
it allows you to quantify and then
that's some of the data like Bree speaks
about that lets you have that bigger
picture and better story
foreign
I think we can squeeze in one more
question and it's really about future
thinking so are there any strategies or
approaches you anticipate implementing
in your teams or we'd recommend the
audience implementing their teams to
help both scalability and creative and
performance and the marketing Endeavors
of businesses
really would you like to kick this one
off yeah what uh what immediately came
to mind for me at Challenger we we made
this shift to an account based marketing
approach for our paid advertising
campaigns this year and it has opened
the doors for our team to experiment in
lots of ways even getting back to the
personalization uh that I was talking
about earlier more so than we've been
able to do in the past I'll I'll share
one example of what we're dabbling in
right now uh like many others in this
market were heavily focused on retaining
and growing our existing client accounts
and we work with some complex Enterprise
accounts where we may only work with a
few business units or divisions and we
want to expand into others and we're
exploring digital ad campaigns targeted
those specific accounts using ABM
software that surfaces a specific case
study or performance results from our
work that we've already done with that
account in those other business student
units and divisions to break into the
ones that we're not into so it's a it's
a different flavor of personalization
and we're still in testing but we're
optimistic in that being a repeatable
strategy that we can use for expansion
expansion and retention with current
clients
we got to talk about that offline Bree
that's awesome I love the account based
piece uh I'll take it the route so Brits
take uh Breeze taken it the like the
really strong tactical and I don't think
I can add more value than her there I'll
take it to like the personal
um like advice recommendation on that
level so audience members what I'll say
here is I've spoken about left brain and
right brain folks if you're more right
brain I'd say like get started and try
to learn more of the left and be
creative and then if you're more left
brain and creative try to start learning
some of that data now you might be
thinking like Evan what the heck how the
hell do I even start with that right so
if everyone can remember with that
flywheel I showcased what you'll notice
here is like just pick a place and
that's where you can begin so what I
mean by that is our data oriented people
it's going to be very natural for you to
look at a thumb stop ratio a CTR and
make recommendations so start there
that's allowing you to be creative so
you're identifying where to make the
change as a creative person on your ends
you're very very comfortable being in a
cap cut a canva Adobe be wherever it
might be and that's where you live the
next step for you is like literally
asking like where is this going to live
like is it going to be in social media
okay what metrics do I care about and
then the media buyer can advise you and
just taking that first step to learn a
little bit more about the other side
um is what I've seen work wonders for a
lot of people who I believe are in this
audience and who I've chatted with in
the past
great
so thank you so much Evelyn and Brie for
your time and sharing your insights has
been really great
um I'm really excited to see how our
audience can take some tactical things
back to gay teams and I guess that's all
from us
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