Where data meets designs
For years, we’ve treated the creative and the analyst like they speak two different languages: one speaks in vibes, the other in spreadsheets, the qualitative and quantitative. But in a world where an algorithm decides who sees your art, the ‘gut feeling’ is no longer a strategy; it’s a liability. The future of digital marketing doesn’t belong to the loudest voice or the biggest budget, but to those who can translate data into a visual strategy.
I remember years ago attending a conference all about performance creative – how designers are moving in digital-first marketing, what that means for the roles of creatives, and what the future may hold as the industry grows. During a panel, an attendee asked one of the creative directors what they expected from designers in terms of data literacy. Her answer was pretty simple; she said her team expected all designers to start the job with an understanding of what data was being pulled, what it meant, and how to act on it. This gave me a sense of panic – coming from a more traditional design school that had not yet implemented courses like UX or anything beyond basic web design, I had jumped into the world of graphic design without any knowledge of how to use data, or how to gather it at all. I wondered how I could learn, how any designer would be able to learn if they were in a role that did not make data a priority, like the one I was in at the time.
As Pantelope has grown, I have developed a way to truly measure the success and efficacy of our creative assets. So much of our work revolves around data, and we have truly talented analysts who are gathering and creating models that still blow my mind. All this to say: the marketing industry is putting pressure on creatives to gather and use data, and many of us aren’t sure how to do so.
If you’ve been wondering what to do, here’s my take:
(Honestly, just start. Make do with what you have, ask questions, learn as much as possible, and you’ll start to see new opportunities as you move forward.)
It’s no secret that data dominates marketing these days. But did you know that Google found creative drives 70% of a campaign’s success? That’s huge for those of us looking for ways to put numbers behind our more subjective ideas. (https://www.facebook.com/business/news/insights/high-quality-creative-increases-ad-roi )
What is creative analytics:
When we talk about creative analytics, we’re talking about gathering and studying data that is related to marketing assets and ad creatives. The goal is to identify patterns and better understand consumer preferences.
This comes with some major benefits for your clients.
- Clearer insights into customer behavior: identifying which ads resonate best with your target audiences will give you insight into your audience’s preferences and interests. Understanding the audience’s taste allows you to test more specific details in your designs to fine-tune what they are responding to.
- Improve your campaign effectiveness: once you start seeing trends, you can build to better efficiency. Your creative team can take advantage of feedback that might seem simple – for example: indicating to the team that dark backgrounds and images of a specific type might not seem huge, but this can be a major guideline for the way your creatives will develop further assets; even that simple direction is already tailoring your designs to your audience.
- Increase ROI and ROAS from creative assets: the more effective the creative is at capturing audience attention, the better the ROI and ROAS. This is especially essential for clients running on smaller budgets. This is an opportunity to test creatives and lock in on areas that are successful and identify areas that are not. Testing shouldn’t ever end – but pushing it into more intentional choices will have a huge impact on how effective ads can be.
- Promote creative imagination: data can encourage innovative ideas. The insights can open your eyes to areas you didn’t think would work or be interesting and help your creative team detach from concepts that may have seemed promising but no longer service the success of the campaign.
What should we be measuring?
There are several key areas to measure. The ROI and ROAS are ultimately what we want to improve for our clients, but in my opinion, we need more nuanced information that we can relate back to the choices made in the designs of the assets. ROI and ROAS can be too “big picture” when it comes to the individual ad’s success or failure.
What you choose to measure in your own creative analytics should be based on what your campaign goals are. Click to Purchase ratio is great for an e-commerce client; however, we have some education clients that want to have customers book calls with admissions counselors, and no purchase is made directly from the ads. Therefore, we need to adjust what we are paying attention to. My best advice: make sure you’re tight with your analytics and account management teams, they are going to be so valuable in helping you figure this out. (Shout out to the many, many team members who have been patient with me and my questions!)
My favorite KPIs to start with include:
- Thumbstop Ratio: the number of first 3-second views divided by total impressions. Your first three seconds of any video are essential; a good hook will make or break an ad. Meta Ads Manager is testing a hook rate metric right there in the platform, and we have been making use of this hugely insightful statistic.
- CTR (Click-through-rate): outbound clicks divided by total impressions. I’ve seen some debate on the value of this metric for design, but for creative analytics, I think it is key to pay attention to. It helps to answer the question of: are people interested in this ad?
- Thumbstop VS CTR: This isn’t a ratio that you can toggle on or off on Meta Ads Manager, but comparing the thumbstop (is the ad stopping the scroll?) and the CTR (are people clicking on this ad?) can give you insight into the success of the value proposition of the ad. If there is a mismatch in those numbers, you can get an idea of where the ad has an issue.
- High Thumbstop + High CTR = High hook & value prop resonance
- High Thumbstop + Low CTR = disconnect between hook and value prop
- Low Thumbstop + low CTR = overall messaging miss, time to rethink the entire ad
- Cost per result (CPR): especially for clients with strict marketing budgets, understanding how much each ad spends in comparison to the CTR helps us understand how efficient that ad is. As you might expect, the ads with the highest CTR usually have the highest spend, but we also want to know how this breaks down per result. This can indicate an issue in efficiency. In campaigns where we are not necessarily tracking click-to-purchase for whatever reason, we can see where the spend is really going.
- Engagement rate: The number of likes, shares, comments, and video views generated by the ad or post. Impressions tell you how many eyes end up on your ad. Comparing this to other metrics like the hook rate or click-through rate can give an idea of how many people saw the ad and cared, or did not. This can also come down to a targeting conversation, but if a ton of people see your ad and very few stop to watch or click, you may have a messaging disconnect.
How do we use data in creative decision-making?
Data is only helpful if you know how to apply it – which seems obvious – but the real task is getting comfortable with understanding what your data means. I mentioned before that getting close with your analytics and account management team is key – I mean it. Creating a culture that is collaborative is your best strategy to make sure that the data you have worked hard to gather actually matters. Writing from the perspective of a creative who pushed to bring data to the table, I’ll speak from my own experience: you, as the creative, are in a position to create the culture that you want. You can lead with your desire to make the data better and show an example of collaboration, a growth-focused mindset, and willingness to be wrong in the name of helping the entire team learn more.
Look at your historical data, identify the patterns, and make decisions based on those. For our creative clients, we run monthly analyses to look at the best and worst ads, the industry trends, competitor ads, and internal trends. From there, we can see what is going on in the greater ad space and see how we compare. We take a look at the ads that have done that best according to the metrics we are measuring and identify patterns. For example, one client launched a series featuring a countdown to class start dates, and it had a high CTR. The concept was a success. We also noted which headlines were on the top ads, how the top photos were edited, and worked with the account manager to understand how the campaign was structured. In the future, we used those headlines to write iterations, we used that photo editing style to lean into the distinct look of these ads, and the account manager could reference the campaign structure to duplicate and improve for the next round.
TLDR
The TLDR of it is that data and creative need to work together to make the most of the digital marketing space. You can create impactful, high-performing campaigns that stand out and deliver results if you can combine these two things. Data doesn’t have to be limiting for creativity; instead, it creates a solid foundation to give actionable direction on where to go next. Or what to avoid next time.
If you can get your creative team behind the importance of data, you’re on the way to improving your creative performance and helping your team fine-tune their work and maximize client results.
