The key to mastering creative diversification isn’t creating more ads. And it’s not following a specific structure when creating your ads.
It’s a phrase I’ve mentioned here a few times in these lessons, but it’s important: Approach ad creation in the spirit of creative diversification.
That means that diverse creative isn’t found in a single feature or approach. It’s something you’re conscious of. When given the option, you will aim to give Meta more creative options to help reach the right person.
When you consider all of the ways you can generate diverse creative, you’ll quickly realize that it’s impossible to execute them all. You’ll end up creating countless ads, and this is something I strongly discourage for most advertisers. You want your ads to offer unique variations without requiring you create more ads to do it.
And that, to me, truly is the spirit of creative diversification.
Here are a few things I want you to prioritize when creating your ads…
Consider Multiple Formats
You can do this with a single ad by customizing creative by placement. An example could be using static images for all feed placements and 9×16 15-second videos for all Stories and Reels placements.
You could use Flexible Format and provide both static images and videos as options for the same ad.
You could create multiple ads, each for different formats (one static image, one video, and one carousel).
There isn’t a single “right way.” The main thing is that you’re prioritizing multiple formats. You’re not relying entirely on one. And you’re not concerned about whether one format or another “works better.”
Because when you approach creative with a focus on diversity, you’re not looking for a universal “best format.” You know that one format will work better for some people and another will work for others.
Take Advantage of Text Options
When you create an ad, take advantage of all of your options to provide more primary text and headline variations. Even if you provide the five manual options, consider the AI-generated variations as well.
While the AI-generated versions often sound AI-generated, there are a couple of ways to approach these. In theory, Meta should only use them if they’re effective, and you might be surprised by the results. But you can also edit the AI-generated versions so they sound like you.
The more options you give Meta, the more chances you have of getting good results. Create noticeably different text that leans into different styles, CTAs, pain points, and psychology.
As is the case with formats, do not obsess over which text options work best. One primary text may perform terribly for most people, but it works best for a certain segment. Your focus is on providing options and nothing more.
Be Open to Various Creative Enhancements
Advertisers have generally been conditioned to distrust and turn off most enhancements. But these are opportunities to generate more diverse creative.
Consider the Advantage+ Creative enhancements. These will not be used universally. In theory, they should only be used to help you. Leave on the enhancements that you can. For those that are customizable, make adjustments so that they’re acceptable.
Experiment with accepting the AI-generated images and backgrounds. You may assume they can’t be as good as your original. But you may be surprised by the results.
When creating new ads for something you’ve promoted before, consider accepting related media. This allows Meta to throw in previously used images and videos with your ad creative. More options give you more possibilities.
And really, there are so many other opportunities to accept enhancements, and Meta is adding more all the time. Customize your site links and turn on that feature. Customize the Format Display Options which allows Meta to turn your static image or video into a carousel or collection.
Be open-minded to all of these enhancements because they help diversify your creative.
Create Separate Ads for Different Personas
Recall that Meta sees your ads as being the best levers for reaching your ideal audience. Use this knowledge to drive your ad strategy.
My target audience typically falls into the buckets of people who own an agency or run ads to promote their own business. While there’s some crossover between the two, there are also very unique pain points.
The agency owner is focused on things like managing clients and keeping them happy with ad performance. The ads for this group would be focused on those pain points.
The advertiser promoting their own business has very different worries. They’re trying to keep their business afloat. If their ads don’t work, they may not be able to keep paying the bills. Separate ads for this group and their pain points would be necessary.
It doesn’t mean that the separate ads for the different pain points will be shown equally. In fact, one may not be shown at all. But use this separation to reach different groups.
Prioritize Keeping Within the Same Ad Set
There’s an instinct to segment ads by ad sets when there are clear, distinct groups. While there are times for that, prioritize keeping them together when promoting the same product with the same optimization.
For example, let’s assume you created a Sales campaign to promote a specific piece of software. The ad set utilizes a performance goal to maximize the number of conversions where the event is a purchase.
You’ve created several ads to leverage different formats, customer personas, and pain points. While these will presumably have different audiences, keep them in the same ad set.
Exceptions could be that you have specific business goals to reach each of your customer personas. Or maybe you’re lucky enough to have a large budget with deep creative resources, and you are working with more than 50 ads at once. Yes, there are exceptions when you can or maybe even want to create separate ad sets.
But for most of us, and in most cases, try to keep these ads for the same goal in the same ad set. You want to avoid segmenting and watering down your budget.
Creative Diversity Doesn’t Guarantee Results
This is the part that will make advertisers angry. They’ll say:
“I did all of this. I focused on multiple formats, text variations, enhancements, and customer personas. I’m getting terrible results. This doesn’t work!”
It’s critical that you understand this about Meta advertising. There is no such thing as a magical strategy, structure, or approach. Simply turning this feature on or following these specific steps won’t guarantee success.
One of the primary goals of creative diversification is giving Meta more options so that you have more opportunities to succeed. But you could just as easily provide countless assets, which are by nature “diverse,” but don’t lead to effective results.
You still need to create good ads. You still have an important, and challenging, job of appealing to your target demographic and convincing them to take action. That fact isn’t going away.
Take a Measured Approach to Ads
If you haven’t taken an approach to ad creation with creative diversity in mind, it can be overwhelming. You will feel the need to do all of it at once. You’ll be focused on all of the things that can result in more ads, like additional formats, customer personas, pain points, and solution styles.
Resist. If you haven’t learned it yet, the most frustrating thing about spending countless hours planning and creating ads is that Meta will often end up prioritizing one or two. And that’s much easier to accept when creating four ads instead of 40.
This is actually where creative testing can come in handy. I discuss more about how that’s become part of my process in the next lesson.
Power Hitters Club
Creative Diversification Sounds Great. Now What?
You understand Andromeda and creative diversification. But applying it to your business is where things get real. How many ads should you start with? What does a good creative test look like? I work through these questions constantly in Power Hitters Club – Elite, my private community for advanced Meta advertisers. You get weekly strategy sessions, Ad Briefs that document how I’m currently approaching creative testing and campaign structure, and a community of advertisers who actually know what they’re doing. Consider it the helpful Meta ads rep you never had.
