Your Content Should Sell is a free a newsletter that gives you practicals about creating content for your brand. It’s a must-read among DTC marketers and business leaders.

Was this email forwarded to you? Subscribe here

I was just on a call with a few media buyers and creative strategist in the Foxwell Founders group and we were discussing creative benchmarks.

You get this data back from the ads, what does it mean?

We talked about how we can improve ads using the data.

But no good discussion can happen until someone says, 'It depends...."

Ah yes, nuance.

Before you get lost in a rabbit hole of data, I want to discuss why creative data can be misleading.

1. What can be true about your ad from data

A good hook rate:

If you have 30%+ of impressions watching at least 3 seconds of your ad, it means the beginning made people stop scrolling and watch.

Something caught their attention that made them want to learn more.

This metric can help you understand your targeting towards customers based on what was said or shown in the first three seconds.

A good hold rate:

If you have a hold rate (ThruPlays / 3-second video plays) of 15%+, it means that the retention of the video is good.

It is a great sign when watch time is up, and people are engaged with your content.

This can help you see what is being shown and said in the video and could help you understand how to communicate with customers in the future.

A good click-through rate:

If you have a CTR of 1-3%, you are doing something that is getting people to say yes, I want to click and learn more.

This metric can help you understand if the messaging and visuals are compelling people to want to buy.

2. Why can these metrics be lying to you

People like to flex metrics to make the ad seem good, but there is always more to the story than meets the eye.

A customer journey is not linear

What were the ad placements?

Audience Network is ads on mobile games which forces the user to watch to continue the game.

Were they watching because they wanted to or because they had to for the sake of playing a game?

So when you see really great metrics, dig a little deeper to get the full picture.

You could have a high hook rate but end up attracting the wrong cohort of customers.

You might have gained someone's attention but at what cost.

Did you say something so shocking to get people's attention that instead of attracting the 40 year old man that the brand is built for, you have 18 year old boys watching?

You could have high retention metrics but low conversion.

Maybe you focused too much on attention that you never sold the product.

Oh and to top it off, the ad is great, but because the website experience is not good, the ad doesn't convert.

Is that the ad's fault?

Instead of focusing on improving what happens after the ad, you blame the ad for not selling so you change a really good ad because the ROAS wasn't good.

Metrics can be a guide to help understand creative strategy and ad creation.

But because the customer journey is not linear, and every brand has unique rules to their account, you need to be careful of taking your metrics face value.

You need to dig in a bit more to make sure you are actually going the wrong direction.

Keep creating!

Matthew Gattozzi

I create a lot of content daily over on Twitter, so if you don't follow me already, I would love to see you over there!

In Other News

🧪 Prose appoints first chief scientific officer

💊 Ritual launches into Target

💰 L’Oréal to acquire Aesop for $2.5B