- Why creative processes fail: Brands relaunch with an overly complex process all at once, set creation cycles too short to deliver new creatives, and over-analyze individual winners instead of looking for patterns across all creatives.
- Creative diversity is key: Different people respond to different content, and Meta is good at matching ads to the people most likely to respond. So the strongest ad libraries vary content type, target group, hook, product, benefit, landing page and awareness stage.
- Learn from patterns, not single winners: Why one creative worked is often random. Name every creative by its attributes (offer, hook, benefit, content type) and group them in a report like Klar’s Creative Comparison Report to see which attributes win across all your creatives (macro-learning instead of micro-learning).
- Good naming conventions are the foundation: Naming that captures attributes like offer, hook, benefit and content type lets you group creatives in reports such as Klar’s Creative Comparison Report and spot what works across the board.
Why do ecommerce creative processes fail?
Most ecommerce creative processes fail for three reasons: the team relaunches everything at once, plans creation cycles that are too short, and learns from single ads instead of patterns across many.
Since January 2024, I have spoken with 10+ eCom founders about their creative process. They all know that a strong process is key to scale but have struggled to implement a process that delivers the results that they are looking for. When asking them about how they approach this topic, I realized that they are all making the same 3 mistakes. Mistakes I have made myself in the past. So if you want to improve your creative process, read on.
1. The Big Relaunch Problem
When you want to establish a new creative process, you start on a whiteboard and outline how the process should work in an ideal world. In Asana you then build out a new project template with tons of conditions and dependencies. Everybody on the team is aligned and excited to get started. The new process is launched.
Within weeks, you are already completely falling behind and are not delivering the outcome you imagined. People get frustrated and fall back into old patterns claiming that the new process (they liked a few weeks ago) is just not working.
Learning? You can’t go from zero to 100% from one day to another. Yes, it’s great to have an end goal in mind but you also need to have an iterative plan on how you get there.
Start simple. With lower targets than you would like. Smash them. Build momentum. Get your team invested and excited. And only then start adding complexities and increase output targets. This was a core problem for most brands.
2. Creation cycles are too short
Yes, you might want to have new creatives every single week. But new creatives cannot be created every single week. You need to script, create/source, edit, review, improve. This cannot be done in 5 working days.
So you always need to have two working streams in your creative process:
- A weekly testing one where you just leverage existing concepts and content to improve already performing creatives.
- A monthly one where you develop completely new scripts, angles, and content from scratch.
Again, this is about building something you can be successful in. You don’t want to be behind constantly. Having these two streams allows you to be fast while allowing time for things that take longer.
3. Shift from micro-learning to macro-learning
When one creative works well, you are obviously trying to understand why it worked and replicate the success with a new creative. But more often than not, this creative will bomb. You get obsessed with it and try many new things and invest a lot of time in it without getting anywhere.
So instead of just looking at individual creatives to generate learnings, start to build and understand what works best across the board. Clearly defined naming conventions that contain things like offer, hook, benefit, content type, etc. are key for that. With that, you can see what type of content works best across all your creative (using the Creative Comparison Report in Klar for example) and increase your chances of success when creating new creatives. More on this further below.
What do the best ecommerce ad libraries have in common?
The best creative ad libraries for eCommerce brands all have the same thing in common: diversity. That means they are using
- different types of content
- for different target groups
- with different hooks
- promoting different products
- highlighting different benefits
- sending people to different landing pages
- for different awareness stages
Now why is that the key to high-performing ads? Because different people respond to different types of content. And Meta has gotten very good at pushing the ads to people they are most likely to respond to.
However, this comes with a problem. With so much diversity, it is becoming increasingly difficult to understand what is working. But there is an easy solution for this. It’s not sexy, but it just works: good naming conventions.
How do naming conventions help you learn from diverse creatives?
A consistent naming convention lets you group creatives by attribute, such as offer, hook, benefit and content type, and see what works across many ads instead of guessing from single results.
With naming conventions in place, you can change the way you operate. Switch from micro learnings, trying to understand why these creatives worked, which is often random, to macro learnings: what attributes of a creative tend to perform best across multiple creatives. This switch will automatically increase your win rate and create more diversity as you are not trying to copy something existing.
How? Well, with good naming conventions, you can create reports that group your creatives based on your naming and see what type of content is working best for what target group. Or any other combination of parameters you are tracking. That way you can always stay on top of what is working (even with a diverse set of creatives) and uncover trends of what works best across the board (and not just a single creative) and double down on that.
There’s this video guide on how to create winning creatives at scale where I break this down step by step and share best practices from leading eCom brands: Creating Winning Creatives – https://www.loom.com/share/c167a62be75641b0929b1d5b3768e77e
FAQ
Why do ecommerce creative processes fail?
Most fail because of three mistakes: relaunching the whole process at once, planning creation cycles that are too short, and learning from single winning ads instead of patterns across many. All three came up in every one of the 10+ founder conversations behind this article.
How often can an ecommerce brand ship new creatives?
New creatives can't be created every single week, because scripting, creating or sourcing, editing, reviewing and improving doesn't fit into 5 working days. We recommend two streams: a weekly one that improves already performing creatives and a monthly one that develops new scripts, angles and content from scratch.
What is macro-learning in creative testing?
Macro-learning means looking at which attributes (hook, content type, benefit, offer) perform best across many creatives, instead of trying to work out why one creative worked, which is often random. Chasing a single winner usually goes nowhere and costs a lot of time. Consistent naming conventions make the macro view possible.
What should an ad creative naming convention include?
It should contain every attribute you vary and want to learn from: offer, hook, benefit and content type at a minimum, ideally also product, target group, landing page and awareness stage. With those attributes in the name, you can build reports that group creatives and show which type of content works best for which target group, or for any other combination of parameters you track.
Why does creative diversity matter on Meta?
Different people respond to different types of content, and Meta has become very good at showing ads to the people most likely to respond. The best ad libraries therefore vary content type, target group, hook, product, benefit, landing page and awareness stage.
How do you start a new creative process without falling behind?
Start simple, with lower targets than you would like, and hit them. That builds momentum and gets the team invested. Only then add complexity and raise output targets.
How do you find out which creative types perform best?
Name creatives consistently and compare them by attribute. That shows what type of content works best across all your creatives.
Related reading
- Finding the ideal CLV/CAC ratio for your ecommerce business
- The Advanced UTM Naming Convention Guide for DTC Brands
About the author
Max Rast is Co-Founder and CEO of Klar. He has built one 8-figure and one 9-figure eCom brand and works with 2,000+ eCom brands at Klar. LinkedIn
