Why does nobody talk about the ad buyer meetup in Cleveland last fall?

I was at that big industry mixer, you know, the one at the old hotel downtown. A guy from a small agency told me his team never uses lookalike audiences, they just double down on good creative. I tried it on a $500 test for a client and our cost per lead dropped by half in a week. Now I'm wondering if we all rely too much on the platform's tools. Has anyone else had a win by going back to basics like that?

3 comments

3 Comments

carter.terry17d ago

Honestly, that tracks with what I've seen too. Platforms push their automated tools because it locks you in, but sometimes the simple stuff just works better. Tbh I've had more luck lately just testing a ton of different images and plain text hooks instead of messing with complex targeting. It feels like we forgot that a good ad needs to stop someone from scrolling first, before any fancy algorithm even matters.

morgan.logan15d ago

But what if the algorithm is the only thing that gets your creative seen in the first place?

murphy.linda17d ago

Read a case study where a brand cut their ad spend by 60% just by switching to basic image and text split tests. They found their fancy audience lists were mostly reaching the same people anyway. The creative itself did the heavy lifting once they stopped overthinking it.