3 Things top-performing advertisers do with their content

When it comes to content, there is some distinct difference between what top-performing advertisers do compared to others. 

Content is one thing that is highly correlated with performance. 

Even the advertising platforms are saying that:

Meta has stated that according to Nielsen, creativity drives 56% of a campaign’s sales ROI.

Google reports that 70% of a campaign’s success is determined by the creative. 

So, what exactly are top performing advertisers doing? 

Are they, and how are they following this advice?

First, top performing advertisers understand how to capitalize on every opportunity to create and launch more campaigns each month and throughout the year. 

Second, a top performer knows how long to keep content live and watches closely to ensure fresh content is ready.

And third, top performing advertisers are also using what we call unique design recipes, meaning more variations rather than using the same thing over and over.

Ready to learn more? Keep reading and learn how to implement these three things into your strategy.

Top Performing advertisers create more content then rest

Algorithms thrive on content. 

Facebook (and other channels) continuously test and prioritize content to serve the right content to the right person. 

Top performing advertisers understand this about algorithms and know they need to keep feeding the algorithm with new content.  

More content equals better results. 

But how much more? More than you might think.

The data show that top-performing advertisers are launching 42% more content per month than bottom-performing advertisers.

One reason for having plenty of content is that it needs to be updated frequently. Keeping content live for only as long as it’s performing well is the next thing top performers are doing.

Let’s dive.

Content is live for lot shorter time in top performing advertisers ad accounts

What happens when you see the exact same ad over and over?

Chances are you get bored and scroll by. 

This is called ad fatigue and why novelty is such an essential part of content.

Avoiding ad fatigue is just one aspect of top performing advertisers who keep content live for less time. With plenty of content, they are also able to receive the feedback they need to be able to cut low-performing content quicker.

Urgency also plays a part in this strategy. When audiences see seasonal and short-term campaigns, they know they need to act. The ad's message is fleeting, creating a sense of urgency or scarcity, which is a powerful way to get audiences to act now.

Ad fatigue, replacing low-performing content, and urgency are the main reasons you'll see top performing advertisers keeping content live for a shorter time. 

How much shorter? 

Top performing advertisers' content is live for 35% shorter time than bottom performing advertisers.

Top performing advertisers are really good at keeping content creation simple with unique design recipes.

This is a great way to create the amount of content you need without feeling like you’re constantly having to come up with new ideas.

Experiment more with your content to get better performance

The Top performing advertisers are using more of what we call unique design recipes. 

Think of all the elements of the content as the “ingredients” of the design recipe. 

Top performing advertisers are combining different elements such as images, colors, backgrounds , text and other.

They use different saturation levels in their colors — sometimes very vibrant and sometimes muted. Even the logo can vary in content as well as placement of the different elements. 

As we mentioned, this approach feeds the algorithm with the new content and explains why top-performing advertisers use 39% more unique design recipes than bottom performers.

Steal tactics from best performing advertisers

To review, compared to bottom performing advertisers, top performing advertisers have these three things working for them when it comes to seeing results. 

• They are creating 42% more content each month.

• They keep content live for 36% shorter time.

• They use 40% more unique design recipes.

Begin implementing these strategies into your campaigns, and you’re on your way to seeing the same type of results as the top performers.

More to read

Keep learning from best-of-the-best advertisers with these insights:

• 5 things top advertisers are doing differently
• Learnings from top-performing advertisers for 2023
• How are top-performing e-commerce advertisers winning with content
• Content learnings from top fashion brands
• The secret behind beautiful ads

Dataset

The dataset from this article is based on 7.1B impressions and 59.1K pieces of individual content on Meta (Facebook) platforms. It takes into account data from all countries and industries, with the campaign objective of Conversions. The period is from 1. September 2021 - 16. September 2022.

Numbers are looking at correlation only, not causation. Remember to check your own data: numbers for different brands, industries, and contexts will vary.

If you were intrigued about a specific insight, you can go in-depth into the various dimensions and how data can be segmented in Confect, here.