How do you make a “hit”?

A data-driven approach to crafting video ads can help you gain insights into performance as you refine your best ads and optimize your strategic approach. This is the theme of Jump Ventures Partner, Leonardo Caracas’ recent Affiliate World speech, where he shared his formula for winning video ads.

The “Frankenstein Hit”

Affiliates who are putting creative assets through intensive testing and iteration can identify what outputs are winning with metrics like Cost Per Thousand impressions (CPM), stop rate, video completion rate, Click-Through Rate (CTR), and Cost Per Click (CPC).

But the key, according to Leonardo, is “Frankenstein-ing” individual elements of those winning pieces together to make new and even more compelling ads.

Test & Iteration

This involves combining the best hooks, storylines, formats, and visuals from various ad pieces to create new ads. When you mix them up, you create your own formula for content that hits.

Use Tools for Video Ad Refinement

In-platform tools like TikTok’s Video Insights and Creative Center can help you analyze viewer behavior and understand current trends. TikTok Video Insights, for example, can show you exactly where people click and where they drop off during a video. Updating peripheral elements like music and thumbnail choice based on those results can increase the relevance of your video ads.

Using these systems to evaluate your assets can guide you to make small but impactful changes to your ads that will keep it fresh and reduce creative fatigue.

Insights From AI

Tools like ChatPDF can help extract valuable insights from textual data like customer reviews. This tool in particular allows users to upload reviews of specific products or brands and ask questions about pain points, competition, product highlights, and other differentiators.

Hit Version 2.0

From there, the tool can synthesize all of these data points into one review, which can subsequently be used as the basis for an ad script, hook angles, and other foundational pieces for a compelling campaign.

Create Ad Variations

Once you have a piece of video ad that is performing well, look at ways to create variations of that asset. Common options include shorter versions of long videos or vice versa, but the key is to base your iterations on data from the tools above to maximize user engagement and conversions.

You can also test a different setting or colors for an image, or variations of your thumbnail. All of these variations will help you prolong the success of your top-performing assets by expanding your placements and reducing creative fatigue.

Test Multiple Ad Types

Also, Leonardo stresses how important it is to vary your video ad types. Experiment with various ad forms such as testimonials, user-generated content, problem vs. solution pieces, and more until you find ads that resonate with your audience.

Finally, remember that scaling and getting amazing results can’t happen without great content. You need a repeatable framework to produce ads consistently – and not just ads that work, but ads that hit.