Hey there,
We’ve tackled some of the fundamental challenges in building a winning creative strategy — but there’s one more topic in this equation that doesn’t get nearly enough attention: creative diversity.
Creative diversity is the practice of testing varied ad formats, messages, and visuals to fuel insights, engage different audiences, and drive better performance.
Here’s one way to think about it:
If you had health goals to hit and, through experimentation, you find that chicken and rice is one of the best meals for you — would you eat ONLY chicken and rice moving forward?
No, you’d add it into a rotation of different meals containing other proteins, complex carbohydrates, and a balanced intake of fruits and vegetables. Each meal targets different nutrient profiles, but together, your meal plan helps you achieve your macro goal: a healthy lifestyle.
You should think about your ads the same way.
Here’s an example:
You are an ecommerce brand in the womens fitness apparel space. You have a number of products, but drive most of your revenue from two that target different ICPs.
ICP #1
Age: 18 - 34 year old females
Product: Cropped long sleeve exercise top
Best performing Meta ads: Video ads with humorous skits
ROAS: 3.7
ICP #2
Age: 40 - 55 year old females
Product: Quarter zip fleece running sweater
Best performing Meta ads: Product carousels
ROAS: 3.2
Next best performing Meta ads: Video ads with educational narratives
ROAS: 3.1
It’s evident that both ad format and narrative structure play a part in performance. This is why creative diversity is so important.
That said, it isn’t an exact science either. There is no golden standard of format/message splits that will yield the best results for every brand. That much is for you to determine.
If it’s helpful, here is our current format diversity breakdown at Motion:
Videos: 65%
Statics: 25%
Carousels: 5%
GIFs/Animations: 5%
Key things to note here are that our product isn’t click to purchase, so carousels don’t work as well for us. We’re also in the process of doing some heavy testing on video styles and formats.
Hope this gives you the motivation needed to pay more attention to creative diversity and to start tracking the impact it has on your ad goals.
