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.

New logo, who dis?

Let no one say the Funnel Vision team doesn’t stick to our New Year’s resolutions. MASSIVE shoutout to the crew at Sleepless for our new brand identity and logo. We’re feeling supremely glow’d up 🕺

In this issue:

• How to make video ads Meta’s algo will love

• The news you need to know from the social sphere

• Actionable lessons from the ad of the week

Reading time: 4 minutes

PERFORMANCE CREATIVE

4 Video Ad Trends Meta's Algorithm is Pushing in 2025

Here’s some eye-opening stats for you:

• Video ads see a 35% performance lift over statics

• Yet 2/3rds of advertisers fail to meet basic video ad best practices

The fruit is hanging low, my friends. And today, we will be your guides to harvesting plump, ripe video ad optimizations that are ripe for the picking.

A few months back we got the lowdown straight from the source at the Meta Agency Summit. Here are the four tactics they shared that automatically put you ahead of the majority of advertisers.

1. Show people in your ads

We humans are wired to process the faces of fellow humans.

So it makes total sense that ads with people do better than ones that don’t.

The key is to make it feel authentic and natural—no generic stock footage. Whether you achieve that through creators, actors, or influencers, that UGC element is critical to building trust and connection.

Take it further: We have a theory that viewers need to identify with the people in the ads. Diversifying the range of creators/talent you partner with has a tangible impact on performance.

Data backs this up:

• 67% of users favor brands that partner with a diverse range of creators.

Take this DoorDash ad as an example. Apart from the male vs female opener, the ads are identical.

PSA: If you have a dog like mine who goes absolutely ballistic when the doorbell rings, headphones are recommended before checking out these ads.

2. Seamlessly integrate your product

Natural use of the product allows your audience to imagine themselves using it, too.

There’s an age-old communication concept at play here: show, don’t tell.

When viewers see someone they identify with (see above, real people) actively using and benefiting from the product or service, they naturally envision themselves doing the same.

Research from a 2022 Meta report bolsters this claim:

• Ads integrating products into lifestyle scenarios drive 26% higher performance

• ROI was 2.3x higher when the product appeared within the first 2 seconds 

Check out this ad from Dr. Squash featuring Canadian comic & content creator, Connor Bergersen. Sure, it took a little longer than two seconds for the product to make an appearance, but the eventual reveal was silky smooth.

3. Make engaging ads

Yeah, it seems obvious. Yet SO MANY brands fail to make ads that engage the audience.

The magic often lies in the editing. Things like:

→ Fast cuts
→ Bright colors
→ Short & choppy copy
→ Scroll-stopping hooks
→ Dynamic visuals and sounds

All make a massive difference in the end result.

Plus, as 75% of Facebook ads are watched on mute, engaging visuals and prominent captions help drive the message home even for sound-off viewers.

You have < two seconds to capture attention and stop the scroll. Make them count.

Case in point: This Brigit ad, which leverages the ‘interview on the street’ opener, boasts a whopping 68.55% thumbstop rate.

4. Optimize for specific placements

Yeah, we said placements—not just channels.

One-size-fits-all creative is a myth. Meta’s algorithm rewards and prioritizes creative assets that adhere to the requirements of each specific placement: Reels, in-feed, stories, etc.

According to Meta research:

• Mobile-optimized assets deliver 1.9x higher ROI than non-optimized ads.

• Campaigns using 8+ placements are 3x more effective than those using <3

These are simple fixes, but not necessarily easy. It requires putting in the work on the cutting room floor to edit and optimize creative assets for each placement to get the most mileage possible out of each concept.

💡Good to know: This is what Sleepless, our team of indefatigable video editors and designers, excel at.

Advanced tactics

Ready for more, eh? Here’s a quick-hit list of more sophisticated video ad tactics:

Take a full-funnel approach. Brand-building awareness and direct response ads used to be a binary choice. Not anymore. The best creative marries performance and brand/creative elements. The funnel is collapsing.

Use multi-objective campaigns. In alignment with the above, Meta recommends combining brand awareness with performance goals by running multiple campaigns with different objectives for maximum impact.

Consistent branding, diverse creative: Maintain brand feel across campaigns, yet diversify creative concepts to appeal to a wider audience.

Prioritize creative volume and variety. You need to give the algorithm material to work with. We recommend 8–12 unique creative concepts per platform at any given time.

Understand that creative is the new targeting. Let the algorithm find your audience—it’s far better at it than us mere mortals. Time and again, broader audiences (around 9–12 million) outperform narrower ones.

Track ad frequency. Higher frequency (the number of times a user is shown an ad) increases ROI, but should stay between 1 and 1.5 per week to avoid diminishing returns.

Putting it into practice

Here’s your homework:

1. Audit your current video ads. Are they following the four best practices outlined above?

2. Prioritize a full-funnel perspective with a mix of brand-building and direct-response concepts

3. Experiment with 8–12 unique creative assets at a time. Meta’s algorithm thrives on variety.

If your in-house creative strategy resources are stretched thin, Ready Set can help.

Our specialist team of creative strategists, producers, and editors are short-form video ad experts. Plus, as an official Meta agency partner, we’ve got the inside scoop on what works on the biggest ad platform in the game.

Curious to see how we can give your brand a boost?

CLICKABLE LINKS 👆️ 

💰 Four of the “Magnificent 7” reported Q4 earnings this week. Microsoft, Meta, and Apple came in strong, while Tesla slipped. Alphabet and Amazon will report next week, expect Nvidia’s next month.

📌 Pin this: Pinterest launched its marketing moments guide for 2025. Simply add your mom’s birthday and anniversary and you won’t miss a beat this year.

♾️ Meta says the decision to end fact checking hasn’t impacted ad spend. Facts.

AD OF THE WEEK ✨ 

Let’s break down this top-performing concept from Brigit to extract actionable insights you can use to power your creative.

Brand: Brigit
Length: 24 seconds
Platform: Meta
Thumbstop: 41%

WHY IT WORKS 🧠

👍️ Recreating the green screen/reaction effect—ReactionTok if you’re Gen Z—resulted in an impressive 41% thumbstop rates and also keeps viewers engaged with the anticipation of his reaction.

🎤 The ‘interview in the street’ concept is a proven winner for this brand, making the ReactionTok a natural iteration.

💃 It smoothly introduces the offer into the flow of the ad. Viewers are hooked by the novelty and familiarly of the concept, but then are introduced to Brigit’s offer just like our reactor.

That’s it, that’s all.

Thanks for reading! Seeya next week 🫶 

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