How to make ad creatives

You are about to pay for ads, or you already did, and the one nice-looking picture you made brought clicks but no sales. Here is how to make ad creatives that give your money a fair test: write them from your buyers' own words, make 4 new ones a day with free tools, and pay only for the ones real people react to. Most founders run 2 or 3 ad creatives, spend their ad budget in a week and decide ads do not work for them.

Do these three things

About 2 hours today, then about 1 hour 30 minutes a day, every day, and 30 minutes each Sunday. Nothing costs money until you know which ads people react to.

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1. 1Today: copy 30 phrases your buyers use about the problem, and turn them into 5 angles: 5 different reasons to buy, each in one sentence, like a small value proposition. Then save 20 ads that have run for 30 days or more in the free ad libraries, as part of a quick competitor analysis.
2. 2Every day: make 4 new ads from one angle: 2 images and 2 short phone videos, each in your platform's sizes. AI drafts the words; you make them true. Post 2 of them as normal posts to see what people react to before you pay.
3. 3Every Sunday: rank every ad by reactions per 1,000 views, cut the bottom half, and make next week's ads as new versions of the top 3. Put only the top ads into a paid test. Judge each angle after 25 ads, never after 3.

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1. Collect 30 phrases your buyers use and write 5 angles

Copy 30 phrases real buyers use about the problem, then write 5 angles from them. An angle is one reason to buy, said in one sentence. Every ad you make this month starts from one of these 5 sentences.

Your buyers' words make better ads than yours, because they are the words the next buyer is already thinking. Look in this order, and stop at 30:

1. Your own customers and chats. Messages, emails, customer interview notes, product reviews and any testimonials. Copy what they said, word for word.
2. Your competitors' reviews. If you have almost no customers, read the 3-star and 4-star reviews of the products your buyers use instead. They say what people like and what still annoys them.
3. Forum questions. Search the places your buyers ask for help for the problem, sorted by New, and copy how they describe it.

Paste the 30 phrases into ChatGPT or Claude with your ideal customer sentence and ask it to group them under 5 headings: the problem, the result, the proof, "instead of" (what they use today), and the worry that stops them buying. Then write one sentence for each yourself, using a phrase from the group.

The problem: [the moment it hurts, in their words].
The result: [what changes for them, in their words].
The proof: [who already uses it, a number, or a quote].
Instead of: [what they use today] → [why yours is easier or better].
The worry: [what stops them buying] → [the true answer].

• Tool: a Google Doc, and ChatGPT or Claude on their free plans.
• Time: 1 hour.
• You will have: 30 phrases, each with where it came from, and 5 angles.
• It worked if: every angle is under 15 words and has a phrase a real person said in it.
• Common mistake: angles about you or your product ("premium", "AI-powered", "all-in-one"). Nobody types those words when they have the problem.

2. Study 20 ads that are working now in the free ad libraries

Save 20 ads in your category that have been running for 30 days or more, and write down how each one opens. Advertisers turn off ads that lose money, so an ad that has run for a month is usually one that pays.

All three libraries are free. Meta's Ad Library lets anyone search the ads running across Facebook and Instagram. Google's Ads Transparency Center shows the ads of verified advertisers, by advertiser or website, with country and date filters. LinkedIn has its own Ad Library for B2B.

Search by the names of the 5 to 10 competitors from your competitor analysis, then by bigger brands that sell to the same buyer. Open each ad and check when it started running. Keep the ones that started 30 days ago or more. In Motion's 2026 creative benchmarks, losing ads were usually switched off before 28 days, while ads that earned their keep ran longer.

For each ad, write down five things: the start date, the format (image, video, several images), the first line or first 3 seconds, the offer, and which of your 5 angles it is closest to.

• Tool: Meta Ad Library, Google Ads Transparency Center and LinkedIn Ad Library, all free. A Google Sheet.
• Time: 45 minutes.
• You will have: a sheet of 20 ads with 5 columns filled in.
• It worked if: at least 10 of the 20 have run for 30 days or more, and you can say in one line how each one opens.
• Common mistake: copying a competitor's words, photos or claims. Take the shape only: "a customer holds the product up and reads the label", not their customer or their label.

If you run a SaaS: search Google's Ads Transparency Center for the tools your buyers compare you with. Their search ads show the words that already work for Google Ads for SaaS.

If you run a B2B company: use LinkedIn's Ad Library. Note which ads are posts from a real person rather than from the company page. Those are the ones to copy the shape of in LinkedIn ads.

3. Write the words for each ad: hook, promise, proof and button

Every ad needs four pieces of text: a hook that stops the scroll, one promise, one proof, and a button. Write them before you open any design tool, because the words decide whether the ad works.

Each day, take one angle. Give ChatGPT or Claude the angle, the buyer phrases under it, and the template below, and ask for 10 hooks. Keep the 4 that sound most like a buyer talking. Fix every claim until it is true. That is about 20 minutes a day for 4 ads.

Hook (the first line on the image, or the first 3 seconds of the video): [a buyer phrase, under 10 words]
Promise: [the one thing they get, from your angle]
Proof: [a review, a number, a quote or a demo you can show]
Button: [Shop now / Sign up / Learn more / Book a call]
Primary text (above the ad): [the hook again, plus one line of proof, 50 to 150 characters]
Headline (under the ad): [the promise, short enough for the limit below]

Keep inside each platform's limits, from their own pages, checked 8 October 2026:

The button and the call to action must match the page people land on. If the ad says "for dry, curly hair", the landing page or product page must say it too. Real social proof beats an adjective: "4.8 stars from [number] reviews" beats "loved by customers". Only use a discount if you can afford it every month, or you teach buyers to wait for sales.

• Tool: ChatGPT or Claude.
• Time: about 20 minutes a day.
• You will have: the words for today's 4 ads.
• It worked if: each hook is under 10 words and uses a buyer phrase, and each headline fits its platform's limit.
• Common mistake: three promises in one ad, or a claim you cannot show. One ad, one promise.

If you run a SaaS: for Google search ads, write all 15 headlines, because Google says more unique headlines give it more ways to match a search. Put the words people type in the first few, from your keyword research. Google advises against pinning a headline to one spot for most advertisers, because it cuts the number of combinations.

If you run a B2B company: write your best angle as a normal post from your own profile first, as you would when you grow on LinkedIn as a founder. LinkedIn's Thought Leader Ads let a company page pay to show a post by its founder, an employee or a customer, once that person approves it in Campaign Manager.

If you run an agency: take the phrases from your client's buyers, not from your own head, and keep each client's voice separate when AI drafts. Send the words for client approval before you design anything. Running Facebook ads for clients covers the rest of the job.

4. Make 4 ads a day in the right sizes with free tools

Make 2 images and 2 short phone videos every day from today's angle, each in the size your platform wants. Make each of the 4 a different kind of ad, so each one can reach a different kind of person.

Why 4 a day: in Motion's 2026 benchmarks, ad accounts spending under $10,000 a month made a median of about 3 new ads a week, and only about 1 in 25 of their ads became a winner. At 3 a week you need two months to find one. At 4 a day you make 28 a week, and you find out in your first week which angles people stop for. Meta built its newer ad system to read far more ads than before and to pick, person by person, who sees which one (Meta Engineering). So 4 different ads reach more kinds of buyer than 4 copies of one.

Rotate through five kinds of ad, and never make two of the same kind on the same day:

1. Close-up: the product in your hand, or your screen doing the one thing, with the hook written on it.
2. Quote: a real review or customer message, large, on a plain background.
3. Talking to camera: you, or a customer, saying the hook in the first 3 seconds, filmed on a phone. Content made by real customers, called UGC, often works best here.
4. Before and after: the problem, then the result, in two halves or two shots.
5. Side by side: "what you use today" next to yours, from your "instead of" angle.

Make them in these sizes, from the platforms' own pages, checked 8 October 2026:

On a 9:16 video, keep the top 14%, the bottom 35% and 6% on each side free of text and logos, because the app's buttons and captions cover them. Meta recommends captions on every video and sound where you can. Do not use licensed music in Reels ads: record your own voice or use free music.

Use a real photo of your product, or a real recording of your screen. Let AI draft the words, the backgrounds and new versions of a picture that works. Since 1 June 2026, Meta shows an "AI info" note in "About this ad" when it detects an ad made or changed by AI tools, and an AI-made person who looks real gets the label next to "Sponsored". Never show an AI "customer" who does not exist.

Before you upload, open "Advantage+ creative enhancements" in Meta Ads Manager and turn off any change you do not want, such as added music or new text. Some are switched on for you, and they can switch back on when you copy or edit an ad. You can set your own defaults under Ad account settings, "Creative features".

• Tool: your phone camera, Canva Free ($0), and ChatGPT or Claude for the words. Canva's one-click resize is in Canva Pro ($18 a month in July 2026), so on the free plan make each size as its own design and copy your layers across.
• Time: about 1 hour a day, 15 minutes an ad.
• You will have: 28 new ads a week, each saved in its sizes and named by angle and kind, such as "problem-quote-4x5".
• It worked if: today's 4 ads are 4 different kinds, and on your phone's preview the hook is readable and sits inside the safe zone.
• Common mistake: 4 colour versions of the same picture. They count as one idea. Change the hook, the kind of ad or the person on screen instead.

AI drafting makes 4 a day possible. Reuse what works: a strong video can become a quote image and a still, the way you would repurpose content. When you have one happy customer, turn their story into a short case study and an ad. For D2C, small creators who post about your product can supply the talking-to-camera ads, if they agree in writing.

5. Post 2 a day for free, then pay only for the ones people react to

Post 2 of each day's 4 ads as normal posts on your main channel. After 48 hours, the ones people shared, saved, commented on or clicked go into your ad account. The rest go back into the pile.

A normal post costs nothing and tells you which hooks people stop for. Post where your buyers already are: Instagram and Facebook for a store, LinkedIn for B2B and agencies, and whichever place your SaaS buyers use most. Use the post ideas for D2C brands, for B2B or for SaaS when you run out of angles. On Reddit, follow each community's rules first, as in promoting on Reddit without getting banned.

After 48 hours, write down each post's views and its reactions: shares, saves, comments and link clicks. Divide reactions by views and multiply by 1,000. That is reactions per 1,000 views, and it lets you compare a post seen by 300 people with one seen by 900. Your median is the middle number when you sort all your posts from best to worst. A post with twice your median moves into the ad account.

Free posts are a filter, not the final answer. People who follow you are not strangers, so the paid test still decides. Start paying only when your ad budget is set and conversion tracking works, and tag every ad link with UTM parameters. When ads are on, add new ones in batches of 4 to 8, not all 28 at once. Meta's own help page on ad volume says that when you run too many ads at once, each one delivers less often. Spread the week's ads over the days instead of making fewer.

• Tool: your social accounts; Meta Ads Manager, Google Ads or LinkedIn Campaign Manager when you start paying.
• Time: 10 minutes a day, plus 10 minutes to log the 48-hour numbers.
• You will have: 14 posts a week, and a short list of ads that real people reacted to.
• It worked if: each week, at least 3 posts reach twice your median reactions per 1,000 views.
• Common mistake: paying to run every ad you made, or judging by likes from friends and family.

If you run a D2C store: if you have not yet met the three conditions for turning ads back on in marketing a D2C brand, keep making and posting, and leave the ad account off. Set the money aside with your ecommerce marketing budget for when they are true.

6. Every Sunday, rank your ads, cut the bottom half and remake the top 3

Every Sunday, put every ad that has at least 1,000 views in one sheet, sort it from best to worst, and cut the bottom half. Next week's 28 ads are half new versions of your top 3 and half new tries at angles that have not had 25 ads yet.

Fill in one row per ad. For free posts, the number to rank by is reactions per 1,000 views. For paid ads, it is link clicks per 1,000 views, the click-through rate times ten, and then sales.

Ad name | Angle | Kind | Free or paid | Views | Reactions or link clicks | Per 1,000 views | Spend | Sales | Keep or cut

Use these rules:

• Wait for 1,000 views. Do not judge an ad before it has 1,000 views. Below that, one share changes the answer.
• Cut the bottom half of everything that has 1,000 views or more.
• Stop a paid ad as soon as it has spent your break-even cost per sale with 0 sales.
• Remake the top 3 in new versions: a new hook on the same picture, the same hook in a new kind of ad, or a new person saying it.
• Judge an angle after 25 ads. If all 25 sit below your median, retire it and write a new one from your 30 phrases.

If an ad gets plenty of clicks but no sales, the ad is doing its job and the page is not. Work through ads that get clicks but no sales before you make more. When an ad keeps winning for 2 weeks, show it again to people who visited, and check what each customer costs with your CAC. For a careful side-by-side check of two versions, use an A/B test only once you have the traffic for one. Once a month, add the totals to your marketing review.

• Tool: Google Sheets.
• Time: 30 minutes each Sunday.
• You will have: every ad ranked, and next week's 28 ads planned by angle and kind.
• It worked if: by week 4, at least 1 ad has twice your median and holds it for 2 weeks in a row.
• Common mistake: judging after 2 days or 200 views, or dropping an angle after 3 ads.

Where Scout7 helps

Scout7 speeds up steps 1, 4, 5 and 6.

Step 1. Scout7's audience research reads public social conversations in your category and builds audience segments with pain points and quotes in buyers' own words. That gives you phrases for your 5 angles. It does not replace talking to your customers.

Step 4. Scout7's Image Studio makes an image post and its caption in your brand's voice from an idea, with your reference images and visual style, and you can regenerate part of an image or edit the caption. Its Video Studio makes portrait (9:16) or landscape video with captions, from a cast and voice you choose. You direct each scene and approve the cut.

Step 5. Scout7 schedules approved posts to LinkedIn, X, Instagram, Facebook, Threads and Reddit, and shows the week in one calendar.

Step 6. In the Scout7 app, Launch Campaigns builds the creatives, ad groups and ad sets for Google, Meta, LinkedIn and Reddit and walks you through creative review, targeting and budget. Active Campaigns reports spend, views, clicks and click-through rate, and every 12 hours proposes which creative to stop. You review every creative and approve or reject every change. Campaigns run in the Scout7 app, not from Claude or ChatGPT yet. Nothing goes live without your approval.

Your ad creative checklist for the next 4 weeks

0 of 12 done

Work through this list with an AI assistant

It drafts the work and keeps track of what is done.

Do this with ChatGPT(opens in a new tab)Do this with Claude(opens in a new tab)

Step 1 · Collect 30 phrases your buyers use and write 5 angles

• Copy 30 phrases buyers use about the problem, word for word.
• Write 5 angles: the problem, the result, the proof, instead of, and the worry.

Step 2 · Study 20 ads that are working now

• Save 20 ads from the free ad libraries, with start date, format, hook, offer and closest angle.

Step 3 · Write the words for each ad

• Every dayAsk AI for 10 hooks for today's angle and keep the best 4.
• Every dayWrite the promise, proof, button and headline for each of today's 4 ads.

Step 4 · Make 4 ads a day in the right sizes

• Every dayMake 2 images and 2 phone videos from today's angle.
• Check the safe zone and the Advantage+ creative enhancements before each upload.

Step 5 · Post 2 a day for free, then pay for the best

• Every dayPost 2 of today's ads as normal posts on your main channel.
• Every dayLog each post's views and reactions at 48 hours, and move the best into your ad account.

Step 6 · Every Sunday, rank, cut and remake

• Every SundayRank every ad by reactions or link clicks per 1,000 views and cut the bottom half.
• Every SundayPlan next week's 28 ads from the top 3 and the untested angles.
• After 25 ads on an angleKeep or retire each angle.

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