Clickable creatives in 2022: static VS video, 1 second rule or how to hook the user

Converting creatives is not an easy task. You need to pick a picture, text, CTA, and you’re done. But every year, attracting the user’s attention is becoming more and more difficult. How to make a top creative that will convert 100%? What mistakes do beginners make? We asked these and other questions to our expert Roman Sobko, the founder of the largest telegram community in the CIS around XYATIVE advertising creatives.

We asked these and other questions to our expert Roman Sobko, the founder of the well-known telegram community around XYATIVE advertising creatives.

How did you get into your business?

It all started in 2019 when I realized I needed to develop an eye for creatives. Therefore, I saved the creatives of other guys to my “saved” in the telegram. I also had a pain – finding adequate contractors to design creatives. The requirements included respect for deadlines, the level of work, and the adequacy of communication. And I understood that others suffer the same.

With the growth of CPM, every second adequate targetologist already understood that the future lies in working on offer creatives and not tinkering with the settings.

Later in 2020, I created the XYATIVE channel, where I posted three interesting creatives every day and launched a target for recruiting an audience. For myself, I determined that if people liked it, then I would create an ecosystem. And after 10k people in public in the form of courses, community, personal brand, and agency.

After three months, it became clear that my hypothesis had worked, and I could move on. The public was already more than 10k people, and I was perceived as an expert by both targetologists and designers.

The results were as follows:

• The topic is relevant for marketers – the public has grown to 10k people.
• Designers united within my community — I already had a base of 100+ quality designers.
• I opened and closed a boutique creative agency due to low bills and a lot of problems from clients. This business turned out to be unprofitable for me.
• I stated that my team is No. 1 in terms of creatives – after half a year, no one snapped. We started creating additional projects in the form of courses and preparing an online store for creatives, such as a closed community.
• The first course was a failure. We created it to increase the average check for designers. But it turned out that you need to communicate with them, not in the language of numbers, but to talk about creativity.

One Second Rule

“At the first second, your creative will either be of interest, or it will be flipped over.”

Let’s make an equation and add data to it. In most cases, the most popular placement (placement) in ad targeting (Facebook/Instagram) is Instagram Stories. A person flips through irrelevant stories faster – 1 second per 1 story. If you didn’t attract his attention with a “psychological trigger” – that is, you didn’t fall into his need/pain – it means that you are not attractive to him with your advertising.

You have 0-1 second to convince a person that he needs it.

If you open the line “Average view time” in the advertising account and look at the video creative, you can see an indicator of 1-4 seconds. If you also look at how many people “fall off” after 25% viewing, you may be scared 🙂

What you don’t need to do

My top most common mistakes when creating video creatives:

1. Set logo splash screen for 2-3 seconds
2. Beautiful (but useless) animation and the appearance of the phrase at 2-3 seconds
3. Tell a story in stages for 5 seconds, when a person does not understand what is offered to him until 5 seconds

Statics VS Video. What attracts users the most

Everything is simple here. I will not make a fuss.

First. If the product is simple and can sell itself on its own, statics can work better.

Second. If you need to convince through emotions, you can’t fit all the benefits into statics. A good video creative with a catchy opening will work better.

It is also important to consider that CPM will grow, which means that the speed of processing and filtering information will also increase. Therefore, you need to cling to your advertising right away.

Should creatives be branded?

The dumbest thing a small brand can do is to put their own logo on the creative floor, which no one really knows about. A logo on a creative has a place to be only when it says something to the audience of the advertising campaign. For example, quality, reliability, scarcity, and recognition.

Or…

If you are engaged in aggressive marketing and purposefully drain budgets to build brand awareness. But then you just buy coverage in a specific location, and this does not work with small budgets. I remind you that along with the creativity comes the page icon and the page name – which are also part of the branding.

Draw creatives yourself or turn to a professional

There are three types of specialists and three scenarios.

Option 1. Freelancer

Best suited for targetologists/affiliate managers with small volumes of work, when you have not reached the maximum of your people/hours per day.

Creatives will have to be done by yourself on a PC in Canva (1-2 days to master the program), Photoshop (14-30 days to master the program), AE (21-60 days to master the program).

Advantages:

No need to waste time writing technical specifications and wait, as you have your own ideas.

Now more and more targetologists/affiliate managers make creatives themselves. It makes them faster and more efficient.

Option 2: Delegate

In this case, you can do creatives with freelance contractors when you have a budget and some free time. You need to be able to write technical specifications and delegate correctly.

Advantages:

Process and time optimization.

It is crucial to be able to delegate and have spare performers on hand.

Option 3. Combined model

I work with such a system. There are freelancers of different levels and for different tasks. There is also an internal design department. Relevant for complex projects and large volumes.

Advantages:

You can do projects of any complexity.

It is important to be able to treat designers as partners. Do not be daring, do not teach life, do not deceive. Be able to delegate and give enough volume so that good performers stick with you.

Was it interesting? Here are some details about Roman’s projects.

Together with the team, I launched 3-course programs on the market:

CTR UP — learning how to increase the effectiveness of creatives
VISUAL UP – we teach from scratch in 3 weeks to create creatives on a PC
MOBILE UP — we teach you how to develop creatives on your phone from scratch in 3 weeks

XYATIVE club is a closed community of marketers and designers with live broadcasts about creatives.

XYATIVE shop is an online store of creatives, from $2 for a creative template for specific niches.

All our products can be viewed in detail here – https://sobko.studio/