**Evan Lee**
You might know her from YouTube. She's honestly my favorite person in the space. So we have to welcome the one, the only, Dara Denney to the stage, y'all. Let's show some love.
**Dara Denney**
Am I really your favorite?
**Evan Lee**
In the space, I feel like we're so close. So I feel like I have to say that every time and I don't feel like I'm being disingenuous. So I appreciate it, Dara.
**Dara Denney**
Oh my god, it's such an honor. It's such an honor. I am so, so stoked about this and I can't wait to get started.
**Evan Lee**
Amazing. Amazing. Okay, Dara, I'm gonna catch you at the end. Do your thing.
**Dara Denney**
> [VISUAL: slide titled "Trends in Creative Analysis" with the Motion logo and "Dara Denney, Chief Evangelist @ Motion"]
Hey everyone. I am so, so stoked to get started with you guys today. We're gonna get a little tactical today and really talk about trends in creative analysis. And the way that I always love to start these presentations is to actually show you guys two creatives and have you guess which one you think performed best. And I'm only gonna show each of these once, so lock in, pay attention, and let's see which one you think performed best.
**Dara Denney**
> [VISUAL: slide titled "which ad performed the best??" showing two vertical video ads side-by-side, labeled A and B. Ad A plays. It's a split screen. Top: someone parting hair to show scalp. Bottom: a woman speaking to the camera. On-screen text: "Seborrheic dermatitis really crushed my self-confidence and took away who I really was. It changed my personality because I wasn't confident anymore, and it was starting to ruin my life. These three products..."]
And then B.
**Dara Denney**
> [VISUAL: Ad B plays. It starts with a split screen. Top: someone parting hair to show scalp. Bottom: a woman looking shocked. On-screen text: "what the f*ck is this flaking on my scalp?? Stitch incoming...". Then it cuts to a man in a car speaking to the camera. On-screen text: "If you've ever had flakes like this I promise it's not dirt, it's not neglect, and it's definitely not your fault."]
I see an overwhelming amount of you guys saying B. Not many A's. Which tells me that for once in this presentation, I got ya.
**Dara Denney**
> [VISUAL: slide titled "which ad performed the best??" with Ad A highlighted in a green box. Ad A plays again silently.]
The top performing ad here was actually A. And in this presentation, we're gonna dive into a little bit more of why that may be.
**Dara Denney**
> [VISUAL: slide titled "I'm Dara, great to meet you :)" with a photo of Dara Denney on a beach and logos of various companies: Condé Nast, Laura Geller New York, Wandering Bear Coffee, Nuts.com, Daily Harvest, the perfect jean nyc, Hubble, The Blk Tux, upside, stasher, ISSA, and others.]
So, for those of you that don't know me, my name is Dara Denney, and I've worked as a creative strategist and media buyer for some of the top brands in DTC. And I always like to tell people that today I have three jobs.
**Dara Denney**
> [VISUAL: slide titled "Today, I have 3 jobs..."]
> [VISUAL: slide titled "1. partner, ad agency" with a photo of Dara and a man sitting at a table with laptops, and the logo for "POINT GUARD"]
Number one, I'm a partner at a boutique ad agency. This is my business partner, Miguel. He's definitely in the chat. We work with eight and nine-figure brands to supply them performance creative.
**Dara Denney**
> [VISUAL: slide titled "2. content creator" with a screenshot of Dara's YouTube channel showing a video titled "I tested over 1000 ads. Here are the hooks ACTUALLY making MONEY" and her subscriber count of 104K.]
But I'm also a content creator. Um, so I make content for media buyers and creative strategists, and I actually hit 100k on YouTube this year. So thank you so, so much to that community that follows me over there.
**Dara Denney**
> [VISUAL: slide titled "3. chief evangelist @ motion" with a screenshot of the Motion platform dashboard showing a "Concept Comparison" chart and the Motion logo.]
And then, not so secretly, one of my favorites is I am Chief Evangelist at Motion. Now, Motion really leads the industry in supplying education for the next generation of creative strategists, and that's something that is really near and dear to my heart.
**Dara Denney**
> [VISUAL: slide titled "how to analyze creative" with a clicking hand cursor icon.]
So today I want to talk a little bit how you should be analyzing creative in this next generation of, you know, creativity that's at everyone's fingertips, right? And what actually ends up surprising people is that I have a four-step analysis process for analyzing creatives.
**Dara Denney**
> [VISUAL: slide titled "my 4-step analysis process" with a numbered list: 1. Metrics, 2. Content, 3. Comparison, 4. Feedback. The word "Metrics" is highlighted in yellow with the text "(the least important)" added next to it.]
And it's actually the metrics that are the least important part of this process. So when I am analyzing, hey, which creatives actually worked and didn't work, I like dividing those metrics into primary KPIs and storytelling KPIs.
**Dara Denney**
> [VISUAL: slide titled "metrics: the least important" showing a screenshot of a Facebook Ads Manager dashboard. The columns "Amount spent", "Results", "Cost per result", and "ROAS" are highlighted in a green box labeled "Primary KPIs". The columns "Frequency", "CPM", "CTR (all)", "Reach", "Impressions", "Unique outbound CTR", "Video average play time", "Video plays at 25%", "Video plays at 50%", "Video plays at 75%", "Video plays at 100%", "Post comments", and "Post shares" are highlighted in a pink box labeled "Storytelling KPIs". An arrow points to the pink box with the text "The most important storytelling KPIs".]
Now, your primary KPIs are going to tell you which creatives worked and which ones didn't. That is all. Sometimes I get people who come up to me and they're like, "Hey, but what about click-through rate? Can that be an indication of a creative that's working?" No. The creatives that are working on paid social are the ones who are going to get the most amount of spend and results. Everything else is what I like to call storytelling KPIs. So these are going to be able to help tell you the story, potentially, of why something performed or didn't perform. Which actually brings me to the next step of this process, which is the content.
**Dara Denney**
> [VISUAL: slide titled "my 4-step analysis process" with the numbered list. "2. Content" is highlighted in yellow with the text "(the most important)" added next to it.]
When you are analyzing the actual content of any creative, this is actually the most important part of the analysis process. And again, we're going to be zooming in on content-level data.
**Dara Denney**
> [VISUAL: slide titled "content level data" with a bulleted list starting with "Format". On the left, there are examples of different ad formats: a grid of images labeled "SET", and a carousel ad for "Oats Overnight".]
And I always love to start with the format because I think that this is a really easy way for people to ease into starting to analyze creative and why something may or may not be working. So when I say format, a lot of people initially think, okay, images, videos, carousels, right?
**Dara Denney**
> [VISUAL: slide titled "formats" showing examples of "Images" (a static ad for a protein drink), "Video" (a video ad for a light saber toy), and "Carousel" (a carousel ad for Revolve clothing).]
> [VISUAL: slide titled "formats" showing a grid of many different ad formats. The first column is labeled "Image" and shows various static image ads (e.g., before/after, product shots, text-heavy graphics). The second column is labeled "Video" and shows various video ad formats (e.g., split screen, green screen, talking head, text overlay, product demonstration).]
But formats actually go a lot deeper. You have your us versus them formats. You have your features point out, your founders ads, your statistic-based ads. All of these formats are things that really can go into making up a creative. But something I always want you to ask yourself is, what impact can performance or what impact can format actually have on performance?
**Dara Denney**
> [VISUAL: slide titled "What impact is format having on performance?"]
I don't always find that this is the defining thing that can actually make a creative convert or perform. Something that I find is crucially important is the creator.
**Dara Denney**
> [VISUAL: slide titled "content level data" with the bulleted list now showing "Format" and "Creator". On the left, there are examples of different creators in video ads, including a woman holding a product, a man with text "Steal my Creative Workflow", and a man sitting in a chair.]
And we got Oren right there, right? Because I'm telling you, when he's in the ads, those things convert. Your creator and the talent that you work with is more important candidly than the script, the arbitrary hooks that you're making. It is one of the most important choices. And something that I always ask myself when I am trying to reverse engineer creative, especially if they have talent in them, to what level is the actual creator that is selected having that impact?
**Dara Denney**
> [VISUAL: slide titled "content level data" with the bulleted list now showing "Format", "Creator", and "Messaging". On the left, there is a 2x2 grid with the quadrants labeled "human desire", "demographic", "strategy angles", and "user journey".]
The next thing that's going to be crucially important is understanding what type of messaging strategies you're using inside of your creative. And I like to put these into four different buckets.
**Dara Denney**
> [VISUAL: slide titled "human desires" showing four examples of ads. The first is labeled "Romance" (a man in a t-shirt with text "LADIES LOVE A MAN IN A GREAT FITTING TEE"). The second is labeled "Social Connection" (a split screen video of a man with text "My boys thought I lost 15 pounds overnight"). The third is labeled "Tranquility" (a video of a baby sleeping with text "I got 8 hours of sleep 3 nights in a row since switching to Coterie"). The fourth is labeled "Power" (an ad for Readwise with text "Become the Most Intelligent Woman in the Room").]
So number one is going to be, what type of human desire angle are you going after? Are you leaning into the human desire of romance? Maybe social connection, or tranquility, or power.
**Dara Denney**
> [VISUAL: slide titled "demographics" showing four examples of ads. The first is labeled "Age" (a woman applying makeup with text "how I apply makeup for 50+ skin"). The second is labeled "Role" (a woman in shapewear with text "This is the #1 Shapewear for moms"). The third is labeled "Hobbies" (a woman running with text "Just finished my 10 mile run and this is the only thing that kept me going"). The fourth is labeled "Job" (an ad for a supplement with text "Busy Executives Swear By This Energy Catalyst").]
Or maybe you're taking a different approach and really trying to nail a certain demographic. Maybe you're looking at an age, a role they play in their life, certain types of hobbies and jobs that they have.
**Dara Denney**
> [VISUAL: slide titled "strategy angles" showing four examples of ads. The first is labeled "Celebrity" (an ad for SKIMS featuring a celebrity). The second is labeled "Negative Marketing" (an ad for Oats Overnight with text "This is not oatmeal. Very misleading. 1 star."). The third is labeled "Taboo" (an ad for Happy Mammoth with text "A POOP A DAY KEEPS THE DOCTOR AWAY"). The fourth is labeled "Personal History" (a woman eating with text "I tried everything for my period").]
Or maybe you want to take a bigger strategic angle. Maybe you want to go full celebrity campaign, like a Skims. Or maybe you want to lean into negative or taboo marketing, or more of a personal history angle.
**Dara Denney**
> [VISUAL: slide titled "user journey" showing three examples of ads featuring Matthew Hussey. The first is labeled "Unaware" (text: "What Can You Learn In 1 Hour With The #1 Dating Expert?"). The second is labeled "Problem/Solution" (text: "Do you suspect that you are dating a narcissist?"). The third is labeled "Product Aware" (text: "These are the 3 Biggest Dating Mistakes I Help YOU AVOID IN MY FREE MASTERCLASS"). The fourth is labeled "Most Aware" (text: "NOT SURE IF MY Free MASTERCLASS WILL HELP YOU? HERE'S WHAT OTHERS ARE SAYING").]
Another really important factor here with your messaging is going to be what part of the user journey you are really focusing on. So all the way on the right-hand side, looking at the most aware, these are people who are already inherently interested in a free masterclass. Whereas if you look at unaware, these are people that are maybe just slightly interested with what a dating expert has to offer.
**Dara Denney**
> [VISUAL: slide titled "user journey" showing a table with columns "Stage", "User Journey", "Market", and "Formats". The stages are 1. Unaware, 2. Problem Aware, 3. Solution Aware, 4. Product Aware, 5. Most Aware. The "Market" column shows an arrow pointing down from "Most scalable" to "Most likely to convert". The "Formats" column lists suggested ad formats for each stage.]
So I actually really like mapping out all of my messaging points to all of these different stages. And some formats can also lend themselves to different parts of this stage.
**Dara Denney**
> [VISUAL: slide titled "content level data" with the bulleted list now showing "Format", "Creator", "Messaging", and "Imagery". On the left, there is a video ad playing of a man pouring a bottle of wine over his head while sitting in a kiddie pool. On-screen text: "ALCOHOL IS NOT ACTUALLY TOXIC".]
And the next thing that we have is of course imagery. Sometimes the specific type of imagery that you use is also going to have a really big impact and is worth in-depthly analyzing.
**Dara Denney**
> [VISUAL: slide titled "imagery" showing four examples of ads. The first is labeled "Production Quality" (a woman in a kitchen). The second is labeled "Setting" (a woman walking out of a Sprouts Farmers Market). The third is labeled "Color/Movement Play" (a split screen with a woman looking stressed and blue liquid being poured into water). The fourth is labeled "POV Shot angles" (a close-up of a hand holding a glass with text "Clean Ingredients, Delicious Flavor").]
So this can be things like your production quality. Are you using lo-fi? Are you using hi-fi? Could also be your setting, the color or movement play, or even your POV shot angles.
**Dara Denney**
> [VISUAL: slide titled "content level data" with the bulleted list. An arrow points from the list to a new item: "Persona/Intended Audience". On the left, a video ad plays of a woman applying makeup. On-screen text: "Hate doing your makeup? Then try these Eyeshadow 101 sticks from Julep Beauty. So easy to apply when I'm on the go."]
Now, the big thing that I think is, you know, changing in 2026 is actually how all of these fit together to really bring up one more piece of content-level data that I find a lot of advertisers are talking about today, which is all of these go into a certain persona or intended audience.
**Dara Denney**
> [VISUAL: slide showing a screenshot of the Motion platform dashboard. A bar chart compares "Spend" and "ROAS" across different ad concepts. Below the chart, a table lists "Concept/Label" with metrics like "Spend", "ROAS", "Purchases value", and "CTR (all)". The row for "People With Moody Skin" is highlighted with a red arrow pointing to it.]
Now, this is something that on Motion's actual platform that I really love because they now have the ability to look at your creatives and see which intended audiences your creatives are actually meeting. And if you're not a Motion customer right now, this is something too that you can do with your website reviews.
**Dara Denney**
> [VISUAL: slide titled "Audience Segments" showing five different personas with descriptions. 1. "Stinky but Clean" Anxiety Crew, 2. Clean Beauty / Aluminum-Free & Sensitive Skin People, 3. Hormonal / Life-Stage BO People, 4. Heavy Sweaters in Hot Climates & Active Lifestyles, 5. Intimacy & "Everywhere Fresh" Seekers.]
So this is an analysis I did for a recent client of mine. I said, hey, I want to look at the different audience segments we need to develop creative for so that we are more accurately speaking to their problems and their pain points.
**Dara Denney**
> [VISUAL: slide titled "Signals from Reviews" showing a table mapping the five audience segments from the previous slide to specific quotes from customer reviews.]
And we were able to combine those reviews as signals so that we could really zero in on the type of personas that are really going to move the needle for us.
**Dara Denney**
> [VISUAL: slide showing a woman's face flanked by the Meta logo with an infinity symbol and the text "Meta Andromeda", and another Meta logo with a gem and the text "Meta GEM". A robotic hand points towards the center.]
Now, this is even more important in the age of Andromeda, right? Oren touched on it earlier.
**Dara Denney**
> [VISUAL: slide showing a diagram of how the Meta algorithm works. On the left, a large grid of colored rectangles labeled "Millions of potential ads". An arrow points through a funnel labeled "Andromeda" to a smaller grid of colored rectangles labeled "Retrieved Ads".]
And all that Andromeda does for the Meta algorithm is it looks at the millions of potential ads that it could deliver to a single person and actually just makes a smaller group of ads.
**Dara Denney**
> [VISUAL: slide showing the same diagram, but the "Retrieved Ads" are now grouped into three distinct clusters labeled "Persona 1", "Persona 2", and "Persona 3".]
But what a lot of people don't talk about with Andromeda is that it's also grouping these different ads into different personas. Which is why every time you're analyzing creative and you're looking at the format, the creator, the messaging, and the imagery, really think about, okay, who are we targeting with this specific creative? That's going to be really important for your performance moving into 2026.
**Dara Denney**
> [VISUAL: slide titled "my 4-step analysis process" with the numbered list. "3. Comparison" is highlighted in yellow with the text "puts all data into context" added next to it.]
Which then leads me to the last two points of the four-step analysis process, which is comparison. So your comparison is going to essentially put all of your data into context. You're going to look at your metrics and your content, and you're going to be able to compare that to internal and external resources.
**Dara Denney**
> [VISUAL: slide titled "comparison" showing a table with two columns: "Internal" and "External". Under "Internal": top performers, performance as a whole, age/gender/placements. Under "External": competitors, industry trends, platform trends, Varos, Particl, etc.]
So you can look at your other top performers or your performance as a whole. I also really like being able to compare to competitors and really understand, hey, how are our competitors using certain visuals, using certain messaging strategies over and over again so that they can reach their customers?
**Dara Denney**
> [VISUAL: slide titled "Competitors" with the subtitle "What can we learn from them?". It shows a collage of various competitor ads, including product shots and video ads featuring women speaking to the camera.]
This is actually something I like to do on a monthly basis so that I can track it for each of our individual competitors.
**Dara Denney**
> [VISUAL: slide titled "my 4-step analysis process" with the numbered list. "4. Feedback" is highlighted in yellow.]
And then the final part of the four-step analysis process is to also look at feedback, of course.
**Dara Denney**
> [VISUAL: slide titled "feedback" showing a screenshot of a Facebook ad for Tilly Sveaas Jewellery and its comment section. One comment is highlighted with a red box: "Is this in real gold please because I can only used real gold please thank you".]
And look at the type of comments and engagement your ads are getting. Because these are things that, you know, really can help show you, hey, this is the next type of ad that we can make potentially. But it can also give you a gut check on how your creative is landing.
**Dara Denney**
> [VISUAL: slide titled "my 4-step analysis process" showing a flowchart summarizing the process. 1. Metrics (the least important) points to a dashboard screenshot. 2. Content (the most important) points to the list of content level data (Format, Creator, Messaging, Imagery, Persona). 3. Comparison (the least important) points to an icon showing Internal Data vs External Data. 4. Feedback points to the screenshot of the ad comments.]
So moving forward into 2026, my final piece is, is that, you know, the analysis process does not just stop at the data. You have to really drill into the content piece and compare that across different data sources and also look at the feedback on those individual creatives.
**Dara Denney**
> [VISUAL: slide showing a screenshot of a landing page for "The Performance Creative Master Course by Dara Denney". The text says "Doors are currently closed" but offers a waitlist sign-up form. The URL "https://daradenney.kit.com/creativestrategy" is displayed at the bottom.]
And that is all that I have today. Thank you so, so much for joining me. And if you are interested to learn more about creative strategy and analysis, I do have a creative course that is coming out early next year that I am redoing. Um, it's really my life's mission to teach creative strategy. Um, I really love it so much. So thank you so much for having me.
**Evan Lee**
This is everybody's chance to slow clap in their bedrooms, their offices, wherever they're tapping in from. Hit that slow clap because Dara, you absolutely crushed it. People are like instantly falling off on IG after. They're like, too much knowledge, need to digest. Dara, I think we have time for one question. I think we have time for one question if you're cool with it.
**Dara Denney**
Yeah, let's do it.
**Evan Lee**
Perfect. Perfect. So one question that I saw pop up in the chat, they were asking, well, someone said why is Dara so cool, but the other one is, what's the difference between strategy angle and formats from a definition perspective?
**Dara Denney**
Oh yeah, this is a really good question. I'd say that the strategy angle is actually something that could be inserted into different formats. Like, for instance, you can do a piece of celebrity content or a celebrity like big strategy angle in multiple different formats. So every time you see a big celebrity campaign, oftentimes you'll also see out of home, so big billboards, TV campaigns. The format is how it's actually showing up on your individual platforms, but the strategy is really something that can go cross-platform, um, and something that's just like a little bit more mix and match.
**Evan Lee**
Incredible. Dara, you are the best. I'm gonna talk to you really soon. I appreciate the time. You absolutely killed it. Show love in the chat, everybody. Show love in the chat.
**Dara Denney**
Thank you. Thank you.
