Motion logo on a black background. The logo is three overlapping purple-to-blue rectangles next to the word "Motion" in white.
A video conference screen. On the left are two video feeds. The top one is labeled "Evan Lee" and shows a man with dark hair and glasses. The bottom one is labeled "Dara Denney" and shows a woman with reddish-brown hair. The main part of the screen is a presentation slide. Title: "A Snapshot of a Top Performing Creative". Subtitle: "Motion: Creative Trends 2025". At the bottom: "Dara Denney, Chief Evangelist @ Motion".
Dara Denney: Amazing. Hey everyone. Um, I am super excited to jam with you today and I actually wanted to do something a little different. Um, Savannah just showed you about 20 different ad ideas and I actually just want to show you one of the top performing creatives that I worked on last year. And perhaps more importantly, how we got there because it was absolutely a creative collaborative process. Now, I'm hoping that in the age of having to develop more creative volume, this is going to inspire you to think about how to make more creative without necessarily sacrificing on quality.
The slide changes. The new slide has a title at the top: "girl math". Below the title are five different ad creatives, labeled A, B, C, D, and E. Each ad shows the same four makeup products (brush, foundation, highlighter, blush) with different prices and headlines.]
> [VISUAL: Ad A headline: "OVER 40? TRY THIS VIRAL TIKTOK MAKEUP!". Ad B headline: "THE TIKTOK VIRAL BEAUTY ROUTINE". Ad C headline: "MOM MATH: $12 EACH, SAVE $64". Ad D headline: "THE 5 MINUTE MAKEUP ROUTINE". Ad E headline: "I'M 60 AND I GOT CARDED WEARING THIS MAKEUP!".
Dara Denney: Now, you know how I like to start these. This was one creative test that we ran and one of these ads ended up being our top performer for several months, spending well over $2 million and generating over $6 million in revenue.
The slide changes. The title "girl math" remains. Below it is a single ad creative with the headline "$12 EACH, SAVE $64". To the right is a bulleted list of performance metrics: "Spend: $700,000+", "Purchases: 32,000+", "ROAS: 2.21", "CPA: $24", "CTR: 2.25%". The ad is labeled "B" at the bottom.
Dara Denney: But actually, before you decide, I want to show you the original. So, we had actually ran this creative for a few months previously and it wasn't by any means the top performing banger creative that we wanted, but it was doing really, really well.
The slide changes back to the one with the five ad variations (A, B, C, D, E).
Dara Denney: So we decided to do a messaging test. Um, and one of these ended up being the winner. So, out of A, B, C or D or E, which one of these do you think was the winner? Go ahead and put your answers in chat. I'm seeing a lot of Cs. A lot of Cs. Few Ds, Bs, Es. Three? I don't know where the three came from. Okay, seeing a lot of different answers in here. No As, interestingly enough.
A red, rounded rectangle appears, highlighting ad variation D, "THE 5 MINUTE MAKEUP ROUTINE".
Dara Denney: Now, if you answered D, you were absolutely correct. This is the one that ended up being the winner for us. Now, what I think is actually interesting is this was actually what I would call a bit of a super iteration, right?
The slide changes. Title: "how did we get here?". On the left is a screenshot of a UGC-style video of a woman doing her hair. A text overlay reads "GRWM for my meeting". On the right is the ad creative for "THE 5 MINUTE MAKEUP ROUTINE". A large, curved red arrow points from the video to the ad.
Dara Denney: When we were thinking about the type of messaging that we wanted to test, we actually borrowed quite a bit from a lot of the great UGC that we had been running inside of the ad account. Um, this ad creative was actually developed by the agency Adcrate who had been working with us. And even though the text overlay right here says, get ready with me for my meeting, in the voiceover, she actually says, hey, I got a meeting in about two to three minutes. And it gave us this idea for, hmm, the five-minute routine. Now, I will say too, what's really interesting about this is we did actually test the two-minute makeup routine, but it was the five-minute makeup routine that continued to win again and again.
The slide changes. Title: "how did we get here?". On the left are two screenshots of UGC videos. One shows a woman with a surprised expression, with text "The REAL reason this foundation went viral on TikTok". The other shows a hand holding the product box, with text "Why did this foundation go viral on TikTok?". On the right are two ad creatives: "THE TIKTOK VIRAL BEAUTY ROUTINE" and "OVER 40? TRY THIS VIRAL TIKTOK MAKEUP!". A large, curved red arrow points from the videos to the ads.
Dara Denney: And when we look at all of the other variations that we were testing as well, we were still borrowing from other UGC. But what's really interesting, um, about this one right here, the TikTok Viral Beauty Routine is something that we saw worked really, really well and had great sentiment inside of UGC, but not as well inside of this particular creative test.
The slide changes back to the one with the five ad variations (A, B, C, D, E).
Dara Denney: Now, what I think is really interesting in retrospect when looking at this creative, right? Um, what ultimately ended up winning for us was the one that had the most scalable messaging.
The slide changes to a chart. The columns are "Stage", "User Journey", "Market", and "Formats". The rows are awareness stages: 1. Unaware, 2. Problem Aware, 3. Solution Aware, 4. Product Aware, 5. Most Aware. The "Market" column has color-coded boxes: "Most scalable" for Unaware, and "Most likely to convert" for Most Aware. To the right of the chart is a list of the ad headlines, with arrows indicating their position on the awareness spectrum. "The 5 Minute Makeup Routine" is at the top, corresponding to the "Unaware" stage. "$12 Each, Save $64" is at the bottom, corresponding to the "Most Aware" stage.
Dara Denney: Now, this is a slide that I have showed inside of Motion, um, talks before. But when thinking about where we had started with the $12 each, save $64, this is really super offer-based. But as we go up, we can actually see that this type of, um, messaging was going to appeal to people more and more. Um, and really the five-minute makeup routine is something that really had that most scalable language.
The slide changes to a plain background with the text: "But it's not just the messaging..."
Dara Denney: Um, but I do want to mention something, you know, it's not just about the messaging why this specific ad creative worked.
The slide changes to show a screenshot of a tweet from Sarah (@SarahLevinger) dated Jan 23. The tweet reads: "Format selection is not a strategy. Format selection is not a strategy. Format selection is not a strategy."
Dara Denney: Um, and the reason why is because we saw that actually a lot of these ended up, um, being pretty scalable and having really great performance. Um, and I don't mean to call you out, Sarah Levinger, I know you were back on stage. Um, and I saw this tweet you put out a few days ago, format selection is not a strategy. I hear you loud and clear. I absolutely agree.
The slide changes to an animation of a cartoon heart hugging a cartoon brain.
Dara Denney: But I think that some formats make the brain really happy.
The slide changes to show three vintage print ads that use a grid format. Left: A Sony Walkman ad with 11 Walkmans decorated in different "personalities". Center: A Guinness ad with a grid of oysters. Right: A Life Savers ad with a grid of different colored Life Savers.
Dara Denney: And I think that, um, in this case especially, with the grid format, um, this is something that our brains actually find really psychologically pleasing.
The slide changes to show three modern digital ads that use a grid format. Left: An ad showing various items neatly arranged in a clear case. Center: An ad showing different colored razors arranged in a grid, with the headline "Your sun sign = your razor". Right: A screenshot of a Google Images search for "The best razor for PCOS", showing a grid of images.
Dara Denney: Um, and this is something that we did a lot of in the print era, right? And I'm loving how we're bringing the grid format to life even in the modern era and how different it looks.
The slide changes to an ad for a smart toaster. It shows a grid of 35 squares of toast, ranging from very light to burnt black, arranged like a Pantone color chart. The text below reads, "Finally, toast exactly how you like it."
Dara Denney: Um, and this is actually one of my favorites that I've seen recently.
A red circle appears around one of the darker, almost burnt pieces of toast in the grid.
Dara Denney: And I know this might be an unpopular opinion, but, um, when it comes to toast, I'm a little bit more on the burnt side. This is what I like a lot.
The slide changes to show the winning ad creative again: "THE 5 MINUTE MAKEUP ROUTINE" with the four makeup products arranged in a grid.
Dara Denney: Um, so when actually thinking back to this ad creative, right, the five-minute makeup routine, we have that really psychologically pleasing grid layout.
The slide changes to show two modern ads using a grid format. Left: A Nuuly ad with a 3x3 grid of models in different outfits. Right: An ad for shoes, with the shoes arranged on shelves that form the letter "F".
Dara Denney: Um, something that was interesting for me when I was actually doing research on why grids are so appealing to us, it's actually because when we use them, um, our our eyes actually tend to trail in either a Z or an F format.
The slide changes to a video ad playing. It's a split-screen. The left side shows a woman modeling different outfits from Marshalls. The right side shows close-ups of a gold, diamond-encrusted watch, sometimes in a grid format.
Dara Denney: So by even just leaning into this type of, um, ad format or visual format, you are more likely to actually have people looking at more facets of your design because of how their eyes are trailing. Now, something I'm really excited about for 2025 is actually the use of a grid format inside of videos. And this is something that we've also been testing out even just as hooks. Um, this is actually one of the formats that Meta themselves has said is working really, really well, not only on organic reels, but also on reels ads in general.
The slide changes to a large collage of many different ads, all of which use a grid, list, or chart format. Examples include skincare routines, credit card comparisons, intelligence type charts, lipstick swatches, and product feature grids.
Dara Denney: Now, I think that any brand can lean into, um, this type of format. Um, even though this one down here really scares me, um, the the Excel format, it actually ended up running for them for over 200 days. Um, but I think that this is something that, you know, it doesn't have to be as cut and dry as, you know, the the one that I showed you or some of the other ones, but, um, there can be a little bit of magic here with this type of ad format.
The presentation ends. The view switches to a full-screen video of Dara Denney speaking directly to the camera.
Dara Denney: Um, and that's it. Thank you so much, uh, Evan for bringing me up here today. And I actually have a little guest.
A man with a beard and a black cap leans into the frame behind Dara, smiling.
Dara Denney: What's up?
The man gives a peace sign.
Dara Denney: What's up everyone?
The video cuts to the Motion logo on a black background.
A fast-paced montage begins. It shows a grid of various photos and videos of people and products. The grid animates, and text appears over a purple background: "Ship more winning creative".
The screen shows the Motion app interface, specifically the "Sprints" dashboard with analytics like "Launched creatives", "Winning creatives", and "Unicorns".
The montage continues, showing different ad creatives with emoji badges overlaid, such as a unicorn, a trophy, a hook, and a pointing finger with the text "Top clicked".
A list of creative tasks is shown, with suggestions like "Try new hook", "Fix ending", "Improve CTA", and "Try new offer".
A purple screen appears with the text "Join 2,100+ teams shipping winning ads with Motion" and logos of companies like Vuori, True Classic, Hexclad, Jones Road, MUD\WTR, Mutesix, Ridge, Wpromote, and Power.
A close-up of performance metrics in the Motion app, showing numbers and green progress bars.
A black screen with purple text: "Book a demo for a VIP tour".
The video ends with the Motion logo and the URL motionapp.com appearing below it.
