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

Packed issue today, the last one for the year! Inside:

• How to transform winning BFCM ad concepts into holiday high-performers

• What you need to know about big changes coming to Meta in 2025

• Why weird ads work

Let’s get right to it, shall we?

Reading time: 10 minutes

Congrats, you’ve got a hit ad! Now what?

Oh, how we love our high-performers. Stunning. Joyful. Fleeting.

Like ice cream in the summer sun, they are doomed to melt away all too soon. Ads that crush today won’t always do so tomorrow.

But what if they could?

Now you’ve identified BFCM top-performers, here’s how you can apply minor tweaks to make sure they keep hitting for the holidays, Q5, and beyond.

Explore vs. exploit strategy

The explore vs. exploit strategy is a balancing act between exploring new opportunities and exploiting existing ones to maximize returns.

Exploring is all about testing big-swing ideas. Out-there creative concepts and ideas. Fresh audiences. New platforms. Throwing the proverbial spaghetti at the wall to see what sticks.

Exploiting is taking what sticks, iterating on it, and doubling down. Once winning elements or insights are identified, it’s then about how those points of leverage can be exploited, refined, and improved.

Now is the time to exploit your top-performers. Stick with what works and double down on proven winners.

How to exploit a high-performing ad

Here’s a quick 3-step process for exploiting a winning ad that’s easy as A/B… C 🤷

Step 1: Break it down

Identify the exact elements that make a hit ad perform well.

Whether it’s the messaging, a great hook, the call to action, or the overall concept, isolate the winning element.

Consider this ad below. The winning element is the handwritten note (which came from the explore part of the strategy – we uncovered this by testing variables against each other to determine the performant characteristic).

Step 2: Iterate and improve

Now you have a single point of leverage, it’s time to iterate, iterate, iterate.

It’s easy to think of the exploit phase as the “science-y” part of the equation, but coming up with iterations requires just as much innovation and creativity as the exploration phase.

• Some ideas to get you started: Male vs. female talent, different value propositions, smaller numbers vs. bigger numbers, humorous vs. deadpan delivery.

Narrow your focus on this one specific aspect of the ad to think of other ways to represent it.

Example: The handwritten note from the first ad became hand-written placards for the iteration.

Step 3: Review the data

How did the new ad perform when compared to the original? 

If your KPIs are stronger, the exploit worked. If KPIs aren’t as strong, this wasn’t the right exploit. Back to the lab! Either way, you now have more data and further insight to bring to the next iteration of the ad.

💡 Takeaway

Iterations like these can seem like small fries compared to big creative swings.

But iterating and doubling down on what you know is working (even though it may seem stale) can be far more efficient than over-indexing spend on a new untested concept.

Now, new concepts are critical; hence the explore part of the explore/exploit strategy. All ads fatigue eventually. But consider dipping your toes in first before committing to the cannonball—especially at the pointy end of the year.

CLICKABLE LINKS 👆️ 

💼 New study says consumers are 18% more likely to punish a brand for holding opposing political views than reward them for sharing their values.

⚖️ FTC drops updated influencer rules. Forget hiding those #ads in hashtag soup—"keeping it real" isn't just good advice, it's the law.

🙇‍♀️ End of an Eras: After 22 months, 149 shows, and 329 miles walked across stage, Taylor Swift takes her final bow on the Eras Tour. The final haul from the record-shattering tour estimated to be $2.2 billion.

👨‍⚖️ TikTok ban upheld by appeals court. A final challenge in the Supreme Court will determine the app’s future in the US.

AD OF THE WEEK ✨ 

This section analyzes high-performing ads to extract actionable insights you can use to power your creative.

This week's standout creative from fintech company Self proves that sometimes, the strangest ads perform the best. By leading with an unexpectedly bizarre scenario, Self manages to stop the scroll and deliver their message in a memorable way.

Brand: Self
Length: 15 seconds
Platform: TikTok

The ad taps into a powerful insight: in a world of polished, predictable financial service ads, authentic weirdness creates cognitive dissonance that demands attention. By showing a woman laughing hysterically with simple before/after messaging, Self breaks through the typical fintech formality to create a genuinely memorable moment.

WHY IT WORKS 🧠

🤪 Pattern Interrupt 

The unexpected sight of someone laughing alone triggers our pattern-recognition systems. When we see behavior that doesn't match social norms, our brains automatically pay attention to understand why.

👀 Scroll-Stopping Simplicity 

While most fintech ads lead with complex product explanations, this ad's striking simplicity makes it impossible to ignore. The singular focus on an exaggerated reaction creates a powerful hook that draws viewers in.

❤️ Emotional Contagion 

Laughter is inherently contagious. Even without context, seeing someone in a state of pure joy triggers positive emotional associations that transfer to the brand, making the message more memorable and shareable.

STEAL THIS 💡

1. Consider how you can use unexpected human reactions to represent your product's benefits, rather than explaining them directly

2. Look for opportunities to strip away complexity and focus on a single, powerful emotional moment

3. Don't be afraid to let your brand be weird—authenticity beats perfection in social feeds

BOTTOM LINE 👇

In a world of sameness, strategic weirdness wins. The most effective ads don't just interrupt patterns - they create new ones that viewers want to engage with and share.

Meta’s 2025 Ad Restrictions: What You Need to Know Now

Meta’s announced an upcoming data policy change that will limit how advertisers who use sensitive customer data—primarily those in health, wellness, financial services, and legal sectors—use their ad tools.

This change, which takes effect January 6, 2025, will significantly impact the way these brands track, measure, and optimize campaigns on Meta platforms. Here’s what’s happening, why it matters, and how you can prepare to stay ahead.

🚨 Important: Meta has not yet released official documentation on these changes, beyond direct communication with affected advertisers. This article is based on the best available information and strives to be accurate and timely. However, details may evolve as new information emerges.

What’s happening?

Meta is introducing major restrictions on how businesses in sensitive industries can use their advertising tools. Starting January 6, 2025:

• Advertisers handling sensitive customer data will no longer be able to track key user actions like purchases and add-to-cart events through the Meta Pixel and Conversions API.

• These changes primarily target health, wellness, financial, and legal sectors, significantly impacting how businesses measure and optimize Meta campaigns.

This shift is the latest in a series of moves by Meta to enhance user privacy and comply with evolving regulations.

Why the change?

From Meta:

In simpler terms: Meta doesn’t want advertisers sharing sensitive user data that could lead to privacy concerns or legal strife.

Who’s affected

These restrictions will hit advertisers hardest if they rely on tracking conversion events tied to sensitive data, such as medical conditions or financial information.

Meta specifically identifies:

• Health and wellness brands running ads concerning medical conditions, treatments, or specific health statuses.

• Financial services companies running campaigns involving financial tools and/or services like personal loans, credit scores, or debt consolidation.

• Political content that identifies if users are associated with a specific political party, political position, or contains topics related to a political issue.

Among others. The full list can be found here. While existing campaigns won’t be paused, performance may decline as restrictions roll out.

How to prepare

For impacted advertisers, adapting to these changes will require strategic adjustments. Here are some concrete steps to take now to navigate this transition effectively.

1. Review your data source category. Meta automatically categorizes your data source based on your ads and products/services. Certain categories come with heavier restrictions. Verify your categorization in Events Manager and appeal if it’s incorrect. Reviews can take 3–7 days, so act quickly.
   

2. Prepare to adjust your campaigns. Proactively identify restricted events in your campaigns and shift to optimize for non-restricted events like Page Views, ViewContent, or Form Submissions. You can still create custom events—just don’t mimic restricted ones.
   

3. Rebalance your funnel. Lower-funnel events are most at risk. Now is the time to invest in top- and middle-funnel strategies. Develop creative concepts that build awareness and trust to warm up your audience before the conversion stage.
   

4. Expand beyond Meta. We've always advocated for channel diversity, and now's a perfect time to take this more seriously. Don’t just port your top Meta ads over to TikTok, Snapchat, etc. as platforms require their own unique creative. Start by building a library of variations of your top-performing Meta ads to adapt them for other platforms.
   

5. Invest in first-party data. First-party infrastructure will strengthen your ability to target and engage audiences while staying compliant. Google has been preparing us to lean into first-party data for years. So if you haven't already, start now.

What’s next

There’s still so much we don’t know about this planned change. Here’s how we believe the next few months will shake out, and the optimal course of action:

• Q4 2024: Maximize your Meta campaigns now. Focus on proven strategies and creatives to capitalize on the holiday season and Q5. Document performance for future benchmarking.

• Q1 2025: Prepare for widespread testing and learning as changes roll out. Experiment with new campaign types and optimization strategies to find what works best for your business.

• Q2 2025: Emerging best practices based on real results will start to surface. Until then, anyone claiming to have definitive answers is speculating. The only certainty is that adaptation will be necessary.

The bigger picture

This is just another loop in the Meta rollercoaster. The ride won’t slow down, but we marketers are pretty adaptable. Stay experimental, embrace creativity, and be flexible to keep ahead.

Need help?

At Ready Set we specialize in helping brands in red tape-heavy industries navigate compliance and maintain performance.

Want to talk strategy? Get in touch.

That’s a wrap for 2024!

Since launching Funnel Vision in July this lil’ newsletter has grown to reach over 1,000 smart and driven marketers.

From the team at Ready Set, thank you so much for hanging with us each Friday. Stay tuned for bigger and better things in 2025!

We’ll be back with our first issue of the new year on January 10. Till then, have a safe and happy holidays and as always, thanks for reading. Appreciate you 🫶 

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