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.

Super Bowl LIX kicks off this Sunday. The stage is set for titans to collide and victors to be crowned at the annual peak of advertising excellence. Oh, and there's a football game, too.

Here’s what’s inside this issue:

• How to keep your creative fresh

• The optimal number of ads to run

• Actionable insights from the ad of the week

Reading time: 4 minutes

PERFORMANCE MARKETING

A Refreshing Way to Beat Creative Fatigue

Are your creative concepts due for a refresh?

Chances are, they probably are.

Far too many brands sit on the same handful of ads for months—and it’s hurting performance.

Platform algorithms punish stale ads; and so do consumers. Research shows conversion rates drop by as much as 45% after just four ad exposures (That’s ad frequency ≥ 4 to all the nerds reading. Takes one to know one 🤓.)

In fact, we’d put creative fatigue up there with one of the biggest stiflers of ROI.

Yet combatting it doesn’t need to be complicated. Here’s our simple guide to keeping your creative (and your performance metrics) feeling fresh.

Creative rotation: It matters

Humans and machines share at least one quirk: we both hate seeing the same ad too maky

• TikTok, Reels, and Shorts users have short attention spans and an appetite for novelty

• Algorithms calculate that if viewers haven’t already converted after a couple views, they probably never will

Maintaining a steady rotation of new creative satisfies both platform and users’ desire for fresh content. Platforms reward novelty with better delivery and lower CPMs, and users reward it with attention.

If that sounds expensive and resource-intensive, fret not—we have the solution.

Fresh creative ≠ new concept

Refreshing creative doesn’t always mean coming up with new creative concepts from scratch. 

A tactic we recommend (and frequently implement with clients) is data-backed creative iterations of top-performing ads; taking various winning elements like a strong hook, scroll-stopping visual, or compelling CTA and combining them into new ads.

See it in action: This Hers ad combines several proven elements from past campaigns into a top-performing new ad.

Look for clues in your performance data to guide these iterations, such as:

• High thumbstop rates, which indicate an opener can be repurposed

• Strong hold rate, means the body of the ad is capturing attention

• High CTR/CVR, indicating a strong call to action that is driving responses

This iterative approach helps maintain momentum, combat creative fatigue, and reduce production time and costs.

You’d be surprised at how large an impact even small tweaks can make.

How many creative concepts should you be testing?

Short answer: 8–12 creatives per platform at any given time.

This allows you to balance fresh concepts with proven performers, so you're always ready to replace fatigued ads while maintaining scale.

Slightly longer answer: More if you’re testing, fewer if you’re scaling.

Like everything in performance marketing, there’s no silver bullet—so the "right amount" of ads varies depending on your campaign goals. As a rule of thumb, we follow this breakdown:

→ For scaling campaigns, run 6-10 top performers

→ When testing, run 8-10 unique ads

→ When testing variations of the same concept, run 10-16 ads

This framework allows you to test new ideas and approaches while keeping high-performing assets live. 

• Too many ads can divert spend from proven winners 

• Too few can lead to top-performing ads fatiguing faster

How long should you let creatives run?

Short answer: Just over a month.

Ads need time to pass through the volatile learning phase. After ~40 days performance stabilizes. 

Slightly longer answer: We analyzed two years’ worth of performance data from our highest-spending client to investigate this question. The analysis revealed that ads required 30 to 45 days for performance to stabilize.

The findings in short:

• Performance in the first 30 days is erratic as ads gain traction

• Around days 30–45, returns plateau and performance levels off

• If KPIs creep up after 45 days, ads are fatiguing—optimal time to refresh

This will be different for your brand. The point is to identify the sweet spot for creative rotation.

💡Takeaway: Monitor ads to identify the point of diminishing returns. If performance remains strong and spend is stable, keep it running. If spend begins to outweigh returns, it’s time to swap it out.

Final word

Refreshing creative isn't just about quantity. It’s about content quality and diversity, and finding the right balance to drive performance and learning.

Creative fatigue hits faster than most marketers realize—and it can be a massive drain on performance. The cure? Test constantly, keep an eye on performance metrics to identify fatiguing ads, and maintain a pipeline of fresh content.

Let us know: How many active ads do you have at a given time? Vote below and we’ll share the results in the next issue!

CLICKABLE LINKS 👆️ 

💰 Want a 30-second ad slot for the Super Bowl? That’ll be $8M, please.

🏈 Speaking of, here are the Super Bowl ad trends to watch.

♾️ Meta rolls out new AI-powered features for Advantage+ campaigns, the latest move in shift towards taking targeting decisions out of advertisers’ hands.

😬 Google says that ad revenue from Shorts is catching up to its long-form content, a lone bright spot in an otherwise disappointing earnings report.

📈 Meanwhile, Amazon is “swimming in cash”—they raked in $17B in Q4 and plan on using it to boost investments in AI.

AD OF THE WEEK ✨ 

Let’s break down this top-performing creative concept from Wild Alaskan Salmon & Seafood to extract actionable insights you can use to power your next win.

Brand: Wild Alaskan Salmon & Seafood
Length: 25 seconds
Platform: Meta
Thumbstop: 35%

WHY IT WORKS 🧠

🧪 Engineered performance: This ad came out victorious in a grueling competition between four different iterations on this concept. We tested different opening visuals, supers, and value propositions 

🎭 Us vs. them: Presenting a side-by-side comparison of the main alternative (grocery store fish of questionable quality and origin) with Wild Alaskan’s delicious, fresh, wild-caught meals makes it clear which option sits atop the food chain.

🐟 Shows AND tells: Engaging visuals provide a veritable feast for the retinas, while a voiceover narrating a simple script and ASMR-style cooking sounds detail the benefits: 100% wild caught, naturally health, pre-portioned for easy cooking, etc.

Till next time…

Thanks for reading! Seeya next week 🫶 

Psst... wanna earn $1k?

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