Finding the next best performing Ad

💡 Picture this

You scroll your feed, you see an ad from a competitor app, and you have the urge to share it with your colleagues on Slack.

This is the life for the majority of people. It happens to everybody (including past me), and it is okay that you leave this habit after reading this post.

Samet, you are being too harsh.

This is not my intention. But here is the thing:

If that ad you shared didn’t get thousands of likes or millions of views, you are distracting everyone.

But Samet, how do I inspire people to create more ads?

The real question is *not* creating more ads (tho, definitely better than not creating anything). The question is: Where can I find the ad that the competitor is spending tons of 💰?

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Btw, if you are new here, hi 👋, this is Growth Therapist speaking. I grow apps as a freelancer. Connect with me or hit subscribe for user acquisition and data-driven creative tips.

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Of course, we don’t see who spends how much, but similar indicators exist.

I personally define a successful ad based on the impression (need to happen million times) or the number of likes (need thousands). If you bump into those ads on your social media feed, great. Save them, share them.

On TikTok Top Ads Library, for instance, the indicators are # of impressions or likes an ad got.

On Meta Ad Library, the indicator is the age of the active ads (the older the active ads are, the better).

TikTok and Meta are helping me today when I come up with concepts, but they are not enough. They have big weaknesses, which are reserved for another issue of this newsletter.

Speaking of the newsletter, make sure to hit subscribe.

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So where is the most useful information?

The most cutting-edge information I can find today is on an ad intelligence tool called AppMagic (feel free to let me know alternatives, but please watch the video first).

AppMagic isn’t perfect. They don’t take Meta or TikTok into account, but they fetch from sources such as Meta Audience Network, Admob, Iron Source, and more.

But Samet, these tools cost money.

If you are a scale-up, or established business, I bet you spend so much on everything else.

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Okay, too many words. Let me show you what is interesting to me on AppMagic with an example:

I reviewed the top 10 casual gaming app ads in the U.S. that have run in the last 90 days. My success criteria is the number of impressions (for lack of a better option).

Feel free to speed up the video.

Congratulations – you are one step closer to making your next big ad.

After checking the top ads, my next step as an app marketing consultant is to identify patterns in those ads.

Here they are:

✅ Be true to your gameplay (or whatever kind of app you have).

✅ Make sure your team tests different ads relentlessly. What you don’t see in the video is that they run similar ads (but not enough, in my opinion). And the ads are circling in the system way too long (many of these ads are more than 1 year old 🤔).

✅ Remove UI and UX elements if they are not contributing to the ad’s message.

✅ Make users feel something. Surprise them in unconventional ways (and please, please avoid cutting short, like using sex or weapons).

All these bullet points could help you set the vision for your ads. Think of these patterns as part of your brand guideline.

Now your colleagues will thank you for directing them better than anyone else.

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That’s all for this time, folkies!

If you enjoyed the article – hit like, apparently, it helps. 🥳