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Targeting is automated. Bidding is automated. So the biggest lever you have left is your creative, and most brands still treat it as the last step. We sat down with Tommy Changaris, a Marketing Science Partner at Meta, to get the data-side view of why that is, and what it means for anyone making video ads.

His line, and the whole episode: creative is the new targeting.

Key takeaways

• Why targeting stopped being the skill. In the Advantage+ era you don't tell the algorithm who to find. You put the targeting into the creative and let the system find the people. Tommy's number: about half of auction outcomes are attributable to the creative itself.
• What real creative diversity actually is. Swapping the font, the button, or the CTA is the same ad to the algorithm. Diversity means varying the structural stuff: hook, motivator, format, casting. The beach blanket example makes it click.
• Creative fatigue is a lagging indicator. By the time your ROAS drops, you've been leaving money on the table for weeks. Refresh concepts every two to four weeks, and build the next batch before the current winner dies.
• "That sounds expensive" is backwards. The expensive option is one big shoot that makes one ad. Size the production to the goal: multiple concepts a day, pull stills off the video, keep the footage.
• Build a creative operating system. The brands that win aren't the ones with the cleverest audience settings. They're the ones with the system that keeps producing genuinely different creative.

Time jump links

Listen and watch

• Watch on YouTube: https://youtu.be/TfLg-GwalgY
• Listen everywhere you get podcasts: https://share.transistor.fm/s/aa9642fd