Run DMG's Gil David on the Creative Tests Everyone Should Run

Gil David: labeling things clearly, having good naming conventions. Um, so again, like is this, is it black and white? Um, is it product focused or is it more lifestyle focused the image? Um, does it have women in it or men in it? Um, are they um, looking at the camera or are they not looking at the camera? Um, all that kind of stuff. So if you can kind of tag as as many of the main elements as you can, um, in an ad and either, you know, have it in a doc or um, have it in the actual the naming convention, then you can pull it out and run reports in something like Motion.

Reza Khadjavi: Hi everyone. I'm Reza and today I'm joined by Gil David. Thanks for joining us, Gil.

Gil David: Hey Reza, good to see you again.

Reza Khadjavi: Yeah, always, always great to chat. Do you mind uh, we can kick off with uh, if you can introduce yourself.

Gil David: Yeah, so I'm Gil. I'm the founder of an agency called Run DMG, which is based in in Northern Ireland here in the the UK/Ireland. Um, and we're, we're mainly e-commerce focused Facebook ads. Um, and we run, run accounts kind of globally. I think about 50, 60% of our clients are in the US and the rest is UK and Europe. So we get kind of a a good insight into what's going on across the world in a lot of different, different kinds of accounts.

Reza Khadjavi: Cool. And how, how long have you been media buying?

Gil David: Uh, it must be about six, seven years now in total. So going back a little while and then uh, yeah, I set the agency up about four years ago.

Reza Khadjavi: Nice. Cool. And what what are, what's one of the biggest changes you've seen in your career as a media buyer, particularly as it relates to creative? Is there, have you seen a shift with regards to the role that creative plays in media buying and if so, what does that look like? What have you seen?

Gil David: Yeah, definitely. I think like when I first started buying ads, um, you know, like we again, we mainly focus on Facebook, so that's that's what I'm going to talk about. Um, yeah, like you could pretty much run almost anything, um, at the start and it you could get results. Whereas definitely like over the last few years, there's been a big shift towards, you know, you have to run creative that either looks good or it's UGC and it's good UGC. Um, that so ads that don't look like ads, basically. Um, and if you're not running ads that don't look like ads, then it has to be good creative that's, you know, kind of Instagram friendly. Um, and there's definitely like a lot more of a quality requirement than there would have been a few years back when I started when like I say, you could literally pretty much run any old crap and and you'd get results from it.

Reza Khadjavi: And and how has that changed your workflow if you could describe uh, your creative process when it comes to um, developing ads and how do you, how do you decide what to create and when to create it and what does the workflow look like for you?

Gil David: Yeah, so now I'd say that takes up a lot more time and like progressively more over the last, probably over over the last kind of 12 to 18 months as well. Um, just kind of planning creative with clients. Um, generally we don't have kind of an in-house creative kind of studio or anything like that. So it comes from the clients or we we outsource stuff. Um, and that's where, you know, for us most something like Motion's great for for the insights that it gives us into what types of creative in particular are working. Um, and what we found more and more from clients over the last last year or so is, you know, they want insights into what what kind of creative is working best. Um, you know, is it UGC type stuff? Is it product focused? Is it more lifestyle focused? Um, different elements of ads that are working so that they can, you know, understand that for themselves and get more of it. And even just to use like organically or on on other platforms. Um, because again, we mainly focus on Facebook. So if they're using other other ad platforms like I don't know, Pinterest or something like that, then kind of taking insights from Facebook because that's generally what they're spending the most money on. Um, and using those across other platforms. So like I say, it's picking out elements which is Motion's great for some for something like that. So you can say, okay, um, is this image colorful or is it black and white? You know, testing those directly against one another. And then you can see, you know, really clearly the results, you know, there's nice charts, charts to it and and the clients love seeing those.

Reza Khadjavi: Cool. And and when you're, um, like you said, planning the creative and trying to, you know, isolate the elements that are working the best, does the process usually begin with some sort of brainstorm session with your clients where you have like a hypothesis that you're curious about and then they go off and and create ads based on that hypothesis or is it more just like, you know, you take what you have and you run it and you see what's what's sort of working. How do you, how do you approach that?

Gil David: Yeah, I guess it's slightly different for different situations. So if it's like a, if it's a new client and they've been running ads, then we'll obviously look at what's what's been working in the account or what hasn't been working because I always think people sometimes discount that and you can learn as much from what hasn't worked as you can from from what has been working a lot of the time. Um, so we'll look at that and pull out, you know, whatever we can based on data. Or, you know, we we run about, probably about a million dollars in ad spend a month, a bit over that. Um, so we get a good kind of view across different accounts of what's working in different types of of mainly e-commerce accounts. So taking some of those insights as well if there's any kind of similar brands that we work with. Um, and saying, okay, yeah, images with large text on are working best at the moment. So let's try some of those. Um, so that will help. And I always think it's good for the clients to be really involved in that because at the end of the day, it's their brand. They're the most bought into it and and you know, they know exactly what, you know, kind of what the brand means to them and what it should mean to their customers. Um, so I always like for them to be really involved in that process. Um, and for them to be able to see, you know, we're always transparent with the clients about what we're doing. Um, so it's, yeah, it's kind of very much a partnership more than kind of an agency client dynamic like it is a lot of a lot of the time traditionally.

Reza Khadjavi: Mhm. I I've heard a lot of cases where people talk about, you know, how one person or a few people on the team had a hunch that like this creative is going to work really well and then the data ends up saying something completely different. Is that, do you, do you have a similar experience and then what do you do when, what do you do if if there's some stakeholder who's like very attached to a certain creative or creative direction that's not, that's not necessarily working?

Gil David: Actually, like that as long as they, as long as they go with the results. So like I've had it before and I've, I have zero ego when it comes to ads because so many times I've, there's like five ads we're running. I like one or two of them and then the others are like, someone else in the team says, oh no, let's try these. And I'm like, okay, we'll try them, but my mine are going to do better. And then, you know, the other one, the one that I like the least is the one that actually performs the best. Um, and then yeah, like we get that with clients where they're they're set on maybe a certain type of thing or a certain image or video that they like, but hasn't necessarily, data hasn't shown it or they haven't spent money on it yet. Um, and I'm always like, okay, cool, yeah, we'll, we'll definitely test it. We'll put some money behind it and and give it a fair test. Um, and if it does well, then great, fair play. Um, if not, then, you know, be prepared to say, okay, maybe we'll let, we'll let you guys take more of a leading role and and handle it in the future. So, yeah, I always say, you know, let's, let's test it. Um, and I like, you know, people coming up with like in the team or the clients, ideas that are maybe a bit left field or out of the ordinary because I think that's that's what stands out to people. Um, because like with something like UGC, like everyone always talks about it, you have to be doing UGC. Um, and, you know, sometimes, you know, zigging when everyone else is zagging, you know, definitely can work because stuff stands out to people in their feeds and gets them to stop scrolling.

Reza Khadjavi: Mhm. Right. Um, and a good example of that actually is, you know, since a lot of people don't even realize that the 20% text rule has gone. Um, so what's working well for a couple of our different clients is having, you know, it's literally like a screenshot of a review and it's just a ton of text with maybe a logo on it. Um, and that's working really well for a couple of different clients.

Reza Khadjavi: Mhm. Interesting. And so on that point, when you're, you know, either having different members of the team contributing different ad creatives that they think might work best, and then you end up running it and you see like one or two are working well, a couple others are not working as well. How do you try to determine what is it about the winners or what is it about the losers that is is driving like success or failure? How do you, how do you try to isolate the the kind of winning or losing factor?

Gil David: So I guess the first thing you want to do is is label creatives properly and that's again, that definitely helps you if you're using something like Motion that comes into play there with labeling things clearly, having good naming conventions. Um, so again, like is this, is it black and white? Um, is it product focused or is it more lifestyle focused the image? Um, does it have women in it or men in it? Um, are they um, looking at the camera or are they not looking at the camera? Um, all that kind of stuff. So if you can kind of tag as as many of the main elements as you can, um, in an ad and either, you know, have it in a doc or um, have it in the actual the naming convention, then you can pull it out and run reports in something like Motion. Um, and then, you know, obviously you can start to see what works and okay, if you see a certain type of image is working better than the others, okay, is it because it's black and white or is it because this person is looking at the camera? So then the way you test that is by, you know, you run another image which is black and white, but the person isn't looking at the camera. Or you run another another image where the person is looking at the camera, but it's color. And then you can kind of start seeing, okay, so it's black and white that's making the difference. So testing, you know, there's there's always going to be more than one variable probably with the creatives. But then saying, okay, you know, these are the main things. Let's pull that out. Let's use that learning and the data from that that this ad's worked best and try different versions of it. Then we can really see what what the actual element is that's that's working and and driving the performance that way.

Reza Khadjavi: Mhm. One of the things we've noticed is that um, adhering to strict naming conventions can be really hard for a lot of teams because like you're in the account, you're making a bunch of changes and it's hard to stay like disciplined and organized. Is there, is there a tactic you've used and your team is using to try to like commit to a certain naming convention and and stick to it?

Gil David: Yeah, I mean we have kind of a sort of template, um, that we'd use in our accounts and mainly at ad level. And then we, we'd always have a separate campaign which is, some, some advertisers call it an ads builder, we call it an ads bank and that's where all the original ads live. Um, and then we we take the post ID from those and then we use that in, um, you know, any any other ads that are made in the actual the live ad sets. We we typically use the existing post option and then we we put the ad ID in. Um, and because they're always copy and pasted in, like the naming convention, it's always the same. It's always, as long as it's good on the original ad in the ads bank, then it's consistent across all the ads using that that are the same creative and the same copy.

Reza Khadjavi: Gotcha. So, so you'll create it once.

Gil David: Yeah.

Reza Khadjavi: And then you'll just use post IDs for when you're kind of putting those into the live ad sets so you're not duplicating the work.

Gil David: Yeah. And then that makes it easy because you can duplicate it and it will hold the proof if you're using an existing post. Um, or you can just, you know, copy and paste ads here and there across different ad sets and and it keeps the the exact same naming convention and the same post ID. So it makes life a lot easier definitely having one campaign as long as you make sure it's always turned off and just build the ads in there.

Reza Khadjavi: Mhm. Cool. Okay. So now you've got your naming convention set, you're tagging elements in the ads. And so, uh, for those who are just getting started with Motion, how do you, like what, what sort of um, reports do you create and what does that workflow look like with regards to, you know, are you, how are you sharing those findings with with uh, with the clients? Like if you can talk about that process of how you're using Motion, that'd be helpful.

Gil David: Yeah. So, I mean, obviously I've been using it since like near the start, so I've seen kind of the the development of the software and it's been great to see. Um, but I think, you know, you guys have made it really easy for people because you've got the top performing which you can just pull out. Um, and, you know, people can see that easy as long as they set up the columns with the right metrics they want to look at. Um, then that makes it super easy for people to just really quickly see what the top performing ads are, you know, based on whatever metrics they, their key metrics are if it's ROAS or CPA or cost per lead, you know, you can really easily see that quickly and compare different metrics and different time scales. Um, and then, you know, what we found the comparative analysis useful for is comparing, um, you know, apart from comparing different types of creative, different elements is you can compare landing pages. So as long as you've tagged them in the ad with like LP1, LP2, that kind of way, that's what we'd normally do. Um, then you can compare those directly against each other. Um, and then I think there's actually an example on the website from from a a test I ran last year, I think it was, where we're comparing three different offers for a brand and it was exactly the same offer, but it was just kind of phrased differently. So one ad said 50% off, one ad said half off, and one ad said, I think it was like $15, something like that for the product. Um, so comparing all those, exactly the same offer, the exact same kind of, um, revenue for the for the client. But just, yeah, just seeing really which what type of messaging worked best and what resonated best with the customers.

Reza Khadjavi: Mhm. And are you taking those findings and then sharing it with your clients in like a weekly meeting or do you kind of put them into into a a report or how do you share the findings?

Gil David: Yeah, so we have, you know, some clients and generally like in high spend accounts then, you know, you've got more data faster, you can you can pull out a bit more over over a week. And some of them like, um, they're not spending as much, then maybe it's kind of just sending it once a month. Um, and then kind of sending it over seven days is a bit more, I find, you know, especially now with kind of issues with reporting since iOS 14 and, you know, not being able to trust 100% what the data says in Facebook. You know, seven days is more of, you know, what's what's working right now, um, rather than putting out too much in the way of insights. Um, and then we'd send a 30-day report which is looking at the whole month before and then you can say, okay, this creative worked best. We ran three different ads that were all around a similar theme and that definitely seems to be resonating best with our audience and performing best. So let's get more creative built around that.

Reza Khadjavi: Cool. You mentioned, um, you mentioned KPIs and metrics and and uh, people could look at different things. When you're trying to analyze what creative is working best, what, what KPIs are you usually looking at? Obviously, if it's e-commerce, you know, you got ROAS and cost per purchase. Are those, are those the main ones for you or how do you think about KPIs?

Gil David: Yeah, I think longer term, but, you know, if especially if you're testing, um, then there's a balance between testing because I think people are always surprised when you, when you actually show them, you know, what statistical significance would be because no one can afford to run ads because you'd have to spend thousands probably on each individual ad to test it to any kind of true level of significance. Um, so I think by being efficient is, you know, saying by X number of spend, which normally is about average order value maybe, um, has it at least got a purchase? Um, shall we keep spending money on it? Um, and again, that's that's all the kind of stuff that's a little bit harder now, it's, you know, it's harder now than it has been at any time in the last few years, um, to get those kind of insights because, you know, the data isn't there. Um, but yeah, has it at least getting purchases? If it's not getting purchases, is it at least getting add to carts? So there's that kind of buying signal. Um, and then a bit further up, kind of I call them secondary metrics, things like CTR and CPC. And CTR is, you know, it's a decent indicator for at least, you know, a certain percentage of people are engaging with that creative and it's made them stop and they've actually clicked on the ad. Um, so CTR can be an okay secondary indicator. Um, but definitely, you know, initially you want to be looking for an ad that's that's ideally getting purchases within, you know, about one AOV of spend. Um, and if not, is it at least getting, you know, add to carts at a good cost based on the history of the account, um, to say, okay, let's spend a little bit more to see if this could work. Um, before you, before you kill stuff because I think that's a common mistake I see is people killing stuff too early or too soon. Um, and especially now, you know, you really do have to give, give things a bit of time as well as spend. Um, especially with, you know, 72-hour data lags. Um, it's just not as easy to to see stuff, you know, and micromanage things like people might have done in the past.

Reza Khadjavi: Yeah. Cool. Um, the last area I wanted to touch on was more around the planning piece and you talked about it a little bit, but when you think of planning creative and you think of, you know, how much, how much creative you have based on the campaigns and the tests that you want to run and you're trying to coordinate with your client to say, for example, in like two or three weeks, I need this amount of creative and there might be some back and forth in the middle perhaps, or is there, how do you, how do you approach the planning process when it comes to, um, like how far out are you planning? Do you ever, do you ever get into a situation where, um, you need creatives, but you haven't got them? Like what went wrong there or what's what's that entire work workflow look like for you?

Gil David: I guess part of it depends on how long the creative process takes, which is different for, if it's up to the client to provide us with with most of that, then, you know, that's different for for some of them because some of them have an in-house team, maybe some of them are using a creative agency. Um, so it'd be kind of based around, you know, their own individual time scales with stuff. Um, but I always say to them, ideally we want to be testing, you know, five to 10 new ads, um, every week. Um, you know, assuming they're spending, you know, at least, at least probably $500 to $1,000 a day. Um, then that's the sort of amount of ads that you want to be testing, especially at the moment, you need to be testing more to try and try and find winners. Um, and, you know, we we do use some other tools, so we we use something called Pencil, which helps us generate ads, like video ads, if we don't have creatives coming through from the clients consistently. Um, or there's other some other services we use, we can we can outsource some some graphic design stuff if we need stuff, you know, quicker than the clients can get get back to us. Um, and actually Facebook has some good templates as well, um, that you can use. So, like the video templates they've got in there for slideshows and and making videos just with static images, you know, they're 100% better now than they they were a couple of years ago. Um, so I always think there's stuff you can do, you know, it should never be a case of you're sort of sitting on your hands waiting on creative from the client. Um, because you can always take, you know, even if you've only got statics, then you can make a slideshow out of those and they can work fine. We've all seen them them work well before. Um, or for e-commerce, you know, for most of our clients, dynamic product ads would work well, so carousels and collection ads. Um, and obviously for those, you know, that's that's all pulled from the from the data feed from the client's back end, you know, it's not, it's not reliant on the creative from the clients. So even if it does take a little while for you to get creative back from clients, you know, there's definitely stuff you can be doing to sort of fill the gaps in the meantime, but ideally you want to be getting, you know, enough creative through that you can be testing five to 10 new ads a week.

Reza Khadjavi: Perfect. Awesome. Gil, really appreciate your time. Where can, where can people find you online?

Gil David: So I'm, I'm pretty active on Twitter, so that's @Gil_RunDMG. Um, or you can add me on LinkedIn. I'm always happy to connect with people on LinkedIn and chat there. Um, or if you want to check out the website, run-dmg.com and and send me an email.

Reza Khadjavi: Perfect. Thanks so much, Gil.

Gil David: All right, Reza, good talking.

Reza Khadjavi: Take care. Bye.