How to Create High-performing Ads (from someone who does this for a living)

Ad design is our bread and butter. And we’ve spent years perfecting our process for creating impactful, high-performing ads. Here´s how it works:

1. The brief

The brief is a non-negotiable when creating ads for our clients, but we also prepare one when working on internal projects. Seeing our knowledge in a structured way greatly supports our creative process.

To extract the right information from our clients, we created a template in Figma where we collect product and problem specifics, such as features, capabilities, benefits, pain points, objections, use cases, etc. We also ask them to identify which content pieces, landing pages, and offers they´ll be using in the campaigns. 

2. Ad angles

The angles depend on the product's strengths, what the target audience responds to, their level of awareness, the offer, campaign goals...
The marketer (me in this case) studies the brief and selects the most suitable ad angles.

The most common ones that I use:

• Before/After (to illustrate your impact)
• Comparison (to fight the status quo or substitute)
• Problem-solution (to raise awareness)
• Feature overview (to show off your differentiation)
• Capability first (when function > benefits)
• Benefits first (to simplify features into tangible results)
• Objection-handling (to help ease concerns)
• Use cases (to personalize your ad to a specific persona)
• Testimonials (to build trust)
• Case studies (to prove what difference you can make)

If I’m promoting an event, report or any resources like templates, checklists etc, I treat them as separate products. I focus on their features, benefits and pain points they're solving.



A few angles I usually use are:

• Question (the one that's answered in the resource)

• Resource overview (what it is + features)

• Teaser (a key detail like a fact or finding)
• Pain point (the one the resource solves)
• Benefit (what's in it for them)

3. Conceptualization

This is also something the marketer should do - prepare the copy and the early stage design concept.

This is what my approach looks like. First, I get inspiration from www.adfolio.design and our internal swipe files. Then with the help of creative thinking techniques like brainstorming, reframing, and mind mapping I identify concepts that will successfully communicate the main message. 

I usually work with:

• product images

• metaphors and analogies
• problem illustrations
• familiar UI elements
• post it notes, billboards, signs
• charts and diagrams

The result of this stage are sketches, lo-fi designs clearly showing the concept behind the ad.

4. Design style

At this stage, the marketer and designer will ideally work together on deciding the right design style for the ads.

Here are our designer's favorite ones:

• Flat design
• Minimalist
• Art deco
• Collage
• Neo-retro
• Neo-brutalism
• 3D
• Doodle & Hand drawn
• Psychedelic
• Abstract
• Pixel art
• Pop art

5. Final designs

Now the designer takes over. I brief him using my lo-fi designs, give him inspirational ideas (e.g. a mood board), and then explain the main messaging and effect I want the ads to have. With a few feedback loops, we drive this campaign home. 

I’ve worked alongside our designer for 7+ years and have picked up a lot of design tips and tricks while he, in turn, has learned more about marketing which has really helped our communication.

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