Welcome to Your Content Should Sell, a newsletter that only gives you practicals about how to create content for your brand.

We are almost in AUGUST!!!

Q3 will be done soon before we get ready for the chaotic Q4!

Over the next few weeks, I will be helping you gear up for a successful Q4.

This newsletter is sponsored by Motion. They believe in Goodo Studios' mission and vision - I am so grateful to them!

Was this email forwarded to you? Subscribe here

The landscape of media buying has drastically changed over the years.

Gone are the days where you can throw up a photo on a white background and scale your Facebook ads profitably.

Especially with iOS 14.5, data attribution has been impossible to understand or track.

The competition online is higher, so creative has been pushed to the front of importance.

The media buyer used to do all of the targeting, now the creative does the targeting.

The creative assets are the main lever of media buying now.

A new role has emerged that is vital to the success of the ads online.

Creative Strategist.

This is a unique, new role that hasn't really been defined in DTC until recently.

My friends at Motion, sponsoring this newsletter, put together an incredible resource to teach you how to become a creative strategist.

I have been saying we need to bridge the gap between data and production for a long time.

Goodo Studios does that, but now we actually have some definition to this every changing landscape of media buying and advertising.

I want to jump into what a Creative Strategist is and how you can become a better one.

Everyone should understand creative strategy at least at a high level because this is what will help you build brand and authority around your company.

1. What a creative strategist is not?

A creative strategist is NOT a media buyer.

A media buyer is responsible for setting up ad campaigns on the ad platforms, and collecting, organizing, and interpreting the ad data.

A creative strategist is not the one in charge of ad spend or the technical side of running campaigns on each ad platform.

2. Become a translator

Up until about a year ago, there was no separation between the creative production and media buyer.

Over time, creative production has become more complicated and important, and a gap has been formed between creative and media buyers.

That gap is now filled with the creative strategist.

Ultimately, a creative strategist is a translator between the media buyer and creative production.

The strategist looks at the ad data and figures out why ads perform well or not.They then take those insights and create new production to test new ads.

Learn the Art of Creative Strategy

Motion has an incredible resource to help you become a creative strategist.

Learn from amazing DTC minds like Nik Sharma, Dara Denney, Savannah Sanchez, and more.

You'll learn how to:

1. Build a feedback loop between data and creative

2. Run effective Creative Sprint cycles with your team

3. Eliminate guesswork from your creative process

I only let brands and companies sponsor this newsletter if I believe in what is being sold and I know can help you.

3. Coming up with ideas

There are a diverse amount of factors to test in ads.

• Creative formats

• Influencers

• Ad Types

• Offers

• Ad placements

• Landing page paths

• Product categories

Within each category, there are many options to test and play with.

The creative strategist is trying to find the perfect combination of each of these factors to create winning ads.

A creative strategist has to look at each factor and see how they can have different options to play with in the ads.

For example, in the offers section, you could say "$30/month" or you could say, "As little as $1/day."

The price is the same, but the offer is different.

Different offers might create different behaviors.

Same with certain influencers.

Maybe you have Charles and Tina as influencers, but Tina outperforms Charles in the ads.

Try having Tina in more ads - do you continue to see the same success?

You can go through each category above and find hundreds of tests for your ads.

That is first job of a creative strategist.

4. Curate strategies

One of my favorite books is Steal Like An Artist by Austin Kleon.

Kleon talks about looking at other people's work and creating from what has already been created.

You shouldn't steal intellectual property, but you can find inspiration from what other brands do.

A creative strategist is always watching what other brands are testing to see if those strategies could work for their own brand.

A curator is a powerful person in a world full of information overload.

The creative strategist has to curate and synthesize ideas into a hypothesis to test for the ads.

5. Briefing

As I said last week when I was talking about briefing creators for TikTok, writing about what you want in an ad is DIFFICULT.

The creative strategist must understand production and be able to get the ideas from their head and onto a brief so the production team can execute what the strategist wants.

Briefing is the hardest thing to do, because there can be so many nuances that you assume in your head but aren't translated well onto the brief.

Briefing is where many media buyers fall short because they are so focused on data that they don't have the time to write out a brief on what they need.

This gap is why creative strategists are essential within your media buying ecosystem.

I suggest making your briefs visual with much detail on what you want and don't want.

Goodo Studios uses Milanote to do our briefs but I know other teams use Notion. I think Milanote is better visually and makes more sense for creative production.

6. Check the data

The creative assets have been made, sent to the media buyer, and run as ads.

The media buyer and creative strategist look at the data together.What is working and what isn't working?

The creative strategist comes up with a hypothesis, and then the cycle goes back to the beginning.You constantly look at the data and translate that into creative production to test again.

The creative strategist keeps the creative production engine moving, so you are constantly testing.

The secret weapon to Q4 success will be how good your creative will be for your ads.You need a creative strategist in your arsenal if you want to win.

Luckily for you, Goodo Studios is a package of creative strategists and production together for you and your team. Let us know if you need anything or have questions.

Again, a huge shoutout to Motion for sponsoring this newsletter.

They put together one of the best eBooks I have ever read.Get a cup of coffee, download this resource, and go deeper into the role of a creative strategist.

Keep creating!

Matthew Gattozzi

In Other News

💻 Amanda Goetz talks about running a House of Wise remotely and hustle culture

📸 Instagram’s Chief Explains the Latest Changes in the App Following User Backlash

💄 Glossier enters wholesale with Sephora deal

🔍 TikTok’s Dominance is Now Expanding into News and Search, According to New Reports

🏬 Urban Outfitters to bring Parade into select stores

Resources

We do get a commission from some of these links, but I wouldn't share anything that I didn't think was worth it to you.

Foreplay - I love saving all the amazing ads I have found. Foreplay allows you to save great Facebook ads with a click of one button on Chrome. It is incredible.

Adbox - They do all the hard work of finding great creative so you can get inspired. Learn from the top brands on all major platforms. Get $100 off using the code GOODO

Triple Whale - Have an attribution problem? Triple Whale is doing some incredible things to help you get your data all in one place to make the best decisions for your brand. Get 15% off using the code GOODOOddit - If you’d like to improve your site, you can try out Oddit yourself with GOODO10 for 10% off any Oddit report or grab a free month of Oddit Club - a private community for founders, marketers, and designers.

Wonderment - Make the customer experience better with real shipping updates. Control the most important part of customer journey after a purchase with real time data. Get a FREE 30-day trial when you use the code: goodos