Welcome back to the latest edition of Funnel Vision, the weekly newsletter that puts performance creative & growth marketing in focus. Brought to you by the crew at Ready Set.

Welcome to the first edition of Funnel Vision for 2025! 🥳 

It’s resolution season, so here’s ours: To be your weekly dose of clarity amid the chaos in the ever-changing, red tape-heavy world of performance marketing.

We’ll do it by delivering actionable insights, expert analysis, and real-world examples of brands successfully scaling—so you can, too.

You in? Let’s roll.

Reading time: 4 minutes

Creative lessons from our favorite concepts of 2024

At 9:04am on the first Monday of the year, I sent this message to every creative strategist at Ready Set:

What was your favorite ad/creative concept of 2024 and why?

Yes, I’m that guy.

Thankfully (for my sake and yours) they delivered in spades.

Here are our team’s top creative concepts we delivered in 2024, why they worked, and how you can use the lessons they present to power your next hit campaign.

Brand: Wild Alaskan Company 
Length: 26 seconds 
Platform: Meta
Thumbstop: 36%

This concept for Wild Alaskan Company crushed performance—it was a top ad for five months in a row.

Not only that, it also unlocked a new and unexpected trend we were able to deep-dive into and continue exploring for this client: self care.

Here’s what Ready Set’s Sr. Creative Strategist, Kat Spargalo, had to say about this concept:

💡The Takeaway

Creativity isn’t just making something that’s entirely original. Sometimes it’s combining existing ideas in a way that hasn’t been done before. In this case, the formula is:

Product (Wild Alaskan Company seafood box) + established trend (self care) = top-performing ad.  

Something to noodle on: What seemingly disconnected idea can you combine with your product to create something new and unexpected?

Brand: Self
Length: 39 seconds 
Platform: YouTube

We performance marketers tend to fixate on bottom-funnel creative that drives conversions.

Yet for Ready Set’s senior creative strategist Sarah Bauer, this top-of-funnel concept stood out as her most exciting win of 2024. 

Here’s what she saw in this approach:

Brand storytelling plays an unignorable role in a holistic advertising strategy. Engaging and entertaining content may not always result in immediate conversions (like direct response ads) but they plant the seeds for downstream success.

💡 The Takeaway

Don't underestimate the power of upper-funnel creativity in your performance strategy. Sometimes the most influential marketing happens before the conversion push.

Your next breakthrough might just come from moving up the funnel rather than focusing solely on the bottom.

Brand: Hers
Length: 39 seconds 
Platform: YouTube

The ‘we’re girls’ trend took off on TikTok in 2023 and continued into 2024.

Hopping on trends in your ads is like playing with fire—proceed with caution lest ye be burned.

Getting the tone or timing wrong can backfire big time. That creative risk was a big reason that this ad was strategist Shannon Coast’s most memorable concept of 2024.

And, of course, she nailed it.

Trends offer a great opportunity to piggyback on a viral idea. But you need to be swift, decisive, and bold in your execution. Rather than blindly jumping on the bandwagon, think about how to:

• Put your own spin on the trend. Add real value to the conversation.

• Weave your message seamlessly into the trend’s format

If it feels forced and contrived it will backfire; potentially in spectacular fashion.

💡 The Takeaway 

Trends can be powerful, but only if you bring something meaningful to them. It's not about jumping on the bandwagon—it's about finding the sweet spot where a trend's energy meets your brand's authentic message.

Brand: Hims
Length: 48 seconds 
Platform: Meta

Josh’s favorite concept of 2024 started with a leap of faith.

Instead of hiring an actor to read a script—the M.O. for many ads—Josh asked a real hairstylist to be the star of this Hims ad promoting their hair loss product. And she agreed.

The resulting concept quickly became a top performer.

💡 The Takeaway

The most powerful endorsements come from people who use or work with your product every day.

Don’t overthink UGC content. Sometimes a bit of natural hesitation or casual expertise can build more trust than a perfect script.

P.S. Josh has since embarked on the next chapter of his creative journey 🥲 but his innovative approaches and creative energy continue to inspire our work at Ready Set. We'll miss you, Josh! Can’t wait to see what you build next. Follow his journey.

CLICKABLE LINKS 👆️ 

👯‍♂️ Meta ditches its fact checking content moderation program in favor of X-style community notes. Because nothing says ‘free speech’ like copying your competitors.

🥊 TikTok is in Supreme Court today for a last-ditch attempt to overturn the ban slated for January 19.

📈 While we’re on the topic… TikTok also released their trend report for 2025. Not mentioned: trends may become obsolete in 9 days.

Till next time

Thanks for reading! We don’t take your time for granted, and appreciate you hanging with us every Friday.

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