The Creator-Led Strategy Boosting B2B Ad Efficiency 32% (Meta Study)

Evan Lee: We have our final speaker of the day. This is going to be such a fun one to cap it off. So, Alexandra, somebody who's spoken about quite a bit within Motion's world, like is someone who's deeply respected, so I'm always so excited to hear what's going on. So everybody, this is Alex. Welcome her to the stage. The Associate Director of Creative Strategy at Monks. Alex, I'm so excited to watch your presentation.

Alex Espinoza: Okay, let's do this. Let's see if I have good luck doing this. Uh, alright. Got it. Yay, it's happening. Uh, let's see. We are here. Okay, so hi everyone. My name is, um, Alex and I am Associate Director of, uh, creators, creative, uh, strategy at Monks. I'm so excited to be here. Um, so many creative minds and, um, yeah, like I am a mom of two dogs and a four-year-old girl. I've been teaching yoga for over 10 years and so I do have a life outside of paid ads. I started out as a media buyer, uh, many years ago and spent most of my career optimizing ads and a lot of time behind, uh, scenes in Ads Manager. And over the past few years, I've pivoted more and more into creative strategy and I've launched thousands of ads and managed millions of dollars in ad spend with some of like really incredible brands. And in the past few years, most of the brands I've been working with have been brands that offer a solution through a service versus e-com or like physical product. Um, sort of like professional services, telehealth, fintech, um, software. And, um, so if you are, um, in any of those, if you can, um, associate with any of those, then this is, uh, going to be interesting for you. We're going to be, okay, let me see. Okay, here we go.

Alex Espinoza: Um, so if you don't, if your brand doesn't have a physical product and you're optimizing let's say to lead conversion event or call schedule or downloads or signups, this is going to be really, um, interesting because, um, most of the ad inspo we see out there is for e-com brands. There's a physical product being shown and it's a lot of fun. Um, and there, there is definitely, there is a gap in the industry and the reality is that...

Alex Espinoza: these types of ads don't need to be boring because...

Alex Espinoza: really B2B decision makers are people too. Like they, they, um, all have creative elements that work both for B2C and...

Alex Espinoza: so my piece of advice is, you know, be playful. Like add cartoon imagery, um, use simple language that your grandma would be able to understand, play with memes, and lean towards using less text, large visuals, colorful lifestyle photography to help your user and like to, to stand out from all those trustworthy blue or green ads that we see in the, in the space. And also my favorite is make lo-fi ads that have this DIY feel and little to no editing like UGCs part of your evergreen strategy.

Alex Espinoza: Which really brings me to trend number one for 2026, which is that according to Meta, um, creator-led ads can boost efficiency by up to 32%, which is really a massive performance win when you're scaling spend. And Nielsen reports that 92, about 92% of consumers trust UGC more than traditional ads because it isn't just about someone holding a product, it's about seeing a solution through a more human lens. And in professional environments, that genuine emotion and sort of like third-party perspective speaks louder than any other polished brand ad could do. So again, lean into these less polished ads that embrace real-life imperfections and just signal more authenticity and bypass the banner blindness for B2B ads. Next, um, if you haven't already tried founder ads, I'm a big fan and Dara, I know that you've talked about these before and EGCs. And for those that, um, don't know what EGCs are, these are employee-generated, um, content and it can be really successful and I, I highly recommend that you test these if you haven't done. Um, I, I see a lot of founders resist this format because they really get caught up in making it sort of like a high production and like get caught up in like a perfect script. And the, the, but the reality is that the more raw and real these are, the more users will connect with the message. Be, and like you can shoot it on a phone and it doesn't need to be, we don't need to overcomplicate it, right? Um, because the reality is that people don't trust, uh, brands. People trust, um, people. And the, the last mini trend within this one is all about paid partnerships. And in LinkedIn, these thought leadership ads have delivered two times higher click-through rates, which is really great to see. And I've recently seen a lot of brands, um, that I've been working with, um, have really great performance and the performance has been blowing up with partnership ads. Um, and, and yes, like they can get expensive quickly, but the reality is that authentic content driven by experts and influencers in your industry and your audience segment really helps to build that awareness, that trust, that credibility a lot faster than any other type of ad can do. So when putting together UGCs, let the creator drive the storytelling and make sure to add proven direct response best practices, um, like easy to read text overlay, a strong hook, a clear CTA, call to action. So all these basic elements, make sure that you have those in there. Um, and you want them to look like native content. Like theyre scrolling through, they don't even know that it's an ad, but you also want to, you want to build them for conversions.

Alex Espinoza: And that brings me to trend number two, which is all about storytelling. And we've already talked about this a lot today, um, all about storytelling. And that's a lot of what we're going to be seeing in 2026, especially in the time of AI that everybody's trying to, um, you know, there's a lot of anti-AI content and, and conversations going on. So bring in storytelling. Um, and the first format that we have within this one is tutorials. And no, we're not talking about like a long boring tutorial video. This is really engaging content that briefly guides the user step-by-step on how to use, um, your tool to achieve a desired result or solve a sort of like a common pain point using your platform or your service or, um, the product that you are, uh, providing. Because, um, one, the reality is that in this space, one of the most common barriers of entries is that users don't fully understand the capabilities of your product and or, or how it will actually make their lives better. And by showing them how to achieve a very specific result, you start to start dissolving some of these barriers. Um, I always say like, just don't tell me what to buy, like show me what it can do for me and, and do so through storytelling and then it becomes a lot of a better experience overall. And another format of storytelling, I really like this one. Um, it makes me feel like, you know, watching Netflix shows with episodes. And is, is, yeah, like share content that has episodes that like match the narrative arc similar to the buyer specific stage in the journey. And for example, like have a like a part two narrative hook that like creates this sort of psychological pull and positions your ad as like a continuation of the story. This worked really well in paid partnerships because you've established this connection with a, let's say a brand ambassador and, and the, you can play a lot with, um, sequential retargeting for these to make sure that your users view these in sequence. Um, and then lastly, leaning into seasonal trends and giving them a spin to match your brand messaging. I love what GoDaddy did here, um, playing with the spin-off of the Spotify Wrapped. I know we've already kind of talked about Spotify Wrapped this, today, but this is like a nice spin-off and just being aware of what people are talking about, what everybody's seeing in their feeds, what they're posting. So it's like, you know next year Spotify Wrapped is going to come around this time of the year, like in early December. So what can you do to leverage of those type of seasonal trends? And I did leave some little bullet points here, um, like kind of like actions for everybody in the space that you can do, um, next quarter or in 2026 when you get a chance, uh, to try out.

Alex Espinoza: And next trend is, um, it all, it's all about copy. Is really focusing on evidence-based copy. That's what's going to be leading the way next year and moving forward. Like the key here is to test copy that is really measurable, personable, like pain point centric, that is punchy. And, and it, it really replaces vague claims with specific proof. So instead of saying we increase ROI, you know, you can say like see up to two times more revenue with this. And it's like, it's just really in a feed full of hype, like just using these specific numbers can be, you know, more, a lot more believable than a round number or like a vague claim. This worked really well for both for UGCs and polished brand ads. Um, I like to play with these on statics because people get to take a little bit of a pause and look at what's happening. Um, and another angle that works specifically well for UGCs and it is the oversharing ads. Um, and maybe I'm hyper curious, but yeah, like people like, it's these stories that people are exposing private, private data, like money, like weight or age. And, and humans are naturally curious and, and like to snoop. And, and that's how you hook them in through that storytelling and smoothly without the user like barely even noticing that you, um, are making the brand part of the story. It's just becomes a, an ad. You know, let's say that you're selling telehealth services or, or financial software, show how the content creator uses your product as one of like, let's say their hacks or their day-to-day. So for example, here on the payday routine ad that you are seeing of the couple, um, they could share the financial tool that they're using to, to budget, right? Or on the habits building video, she could share how she's, one of the habits that she's building is like she's seeing an online dietitian through a telehealth provider and how that's making a huge impact in her life. Um, so those are ways that it can like really be helpful to play with copy and, and the script.

Alex Espinoza: And here's the truth, as I said, people don't trust brands, people trust people who use brands.

Alex Espinoza: So I've put together these seven kind of ad guidelines for B2B and digital services, um, so that it's really easy for you to like take a screenshot at the end of this slide and take it with you.

Alex Espinoza: Um, and the first one is going to be, um, is to steal, um, inspiration from behavioral feeds. And I'm talking, um, I think Ashley mentioned, yeah, Ashley mentioned already this, is monitor Reddit, like look at Discord groups, WhatsApp groups, Substack, look at the comments of your ads and the paid partnerships and other conversational spaces that you get to see what people and your user and your audience are talking about, um, and learn about what's really happening. This really helps you to create ads that are directly addressing conversations happening in private communities. And then it helps the audience feel heard, which is so, so important. Um, and one of the ways to do this, um, is to directly, for example, you can, um, answer a specific Reddit thread using like a screenshot of the thread as the hook. And that kind of gives the signal that we're listening to the community and not just throwing marketing at them.

Alex Espinoza: The second one is to, um, is, is focus on thought leadership and brand narrative over hard sell tactics. And this like really helps to, you know, like, um, justify the creative concepts and focus on building trust. And, and it's just like, I think just like a really great way to connect with, with the audience.

Alex Espinoza: Then use the founder, employee-led, uh, point of view as a creative format, not just one-off. Like make this part of your, of your day-to-day. Um, I, I think that this is really important. You can add this as a format, same that you use like, okay, I have my testimonial ads, I have my promo ads, make this one of the formats that you're constantly testing.

Alex Espinoza: The next one is when you do create, because I'm not saying like, oh yeah, like now just only move to human-led creative and UGCs within this space, you're still going to want to use branded ads, you're going to still want to have statics and, and just keep the diversity flowing. And, but, and when you do create branded ads, make it playful, um, or visually distinctive because they can really get lost in, in the feed with like the, the, the brand colors of like blue or green, for example.

Alex Espinoza: Then the next one is to teach workflows, not features. So yes, like play with tutorials, show how it works as a story, like for example, show the pain, like how the workflow, how it helps you, and then what is the result that they get to achieve by using your product.

Alex Espinoza: Um, replace those vague claims, play with copy, proof ads, proof math, use facts, stats, and real quantitative results.

Alex Espinoza: And last but not least, definitely, um, use AI for wild ideas. I like to play with Motion AI agents. Uh, if you haven't played with those, definitely recommend. Uh, you can get some really fun ideas from that. And, um, I think is, is, um, really helpful. I mean, AI obviously takes a big part on all of this and wild ideas is, is one of those because we don't want to be always just copying ads from other ads, right? It becomes then like this never-ending cycle. So that's definitely one thing.

Alex Espinoza: Um, and, uh, yeah, so those are some of the guidelines that I have for you. I would love to see if you have any questions. Um, and is, you know, overall play more when it comes to the space. If your brand is not selling a physical product, tap into UGCs, tap into lo-fi content that feels DIY, native to the platform. Don't be afraid, like the person making the purchasing decision is still a person. Connect with them in that space.

Evan Lee: Crushed it, Alex. Absolutely crushed it. I love how you had that slide right at the end too to give the recap and a nice screenshot so everyone's like, okay, I'm making sure I snap that and I'm good to go. You are the best. Thank you a ton for joining and I'm going to talk to you real soon, okay?

Alex Espinoza: Thank you. Bye.

Evan Lee: Bye.