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I talk to a lot of business owners who overcomplicate their ad creative. There’s a common belief that if you want your Facebook™ and Instagram™ ads to convert, you need beautifully designed graphics, professionally filmed videos, or a constant stream of polished Reels.
In my experience working across client accounts, that’s simply not what the data shows.
Some of the best performing ads I see are incredibly simple. A photo. A basic graphic with one strong line of text. A video filmed on an iPhone. Often the ad a business owner is least proud of is the one that gets the best results.
So let’s talk about what your ad creative actually needs to do, and what I really mean when I tell my Abundant Ads Academy clients they need to test different creative, because it isn’t what most people think.
Your creative has a job before it has an aesthetic
I’m not suggesting you put out ads that look terrible or don’t represent your business. But your ad isn’t there to win a design award. Its first job is to interrupt the scroll for the right person, not everybody, your ideal client.
Once it has their attention, it needs to support the message in your ad. If an image grabs attention but gives no clue what the ad is about, that attention isn’t useful.
Your ideal client should be able to look at your creative and immediately think, “this is relevant to me.”
That takes clarity and simplicity, not beautiful design.
This applies to video too. You don’t need professionally filmed videos. An iPhone video can work just as well, sometimes better, because it feels like the content people are already scrolling past in their feed. The right question isn’t “is this video professional enough?” It’s “does this get the right person’s attention and make them want to keep watching?”
Static images still work as well. I use them across client accounts constantly, and I’d never stop testing them just because video is popular.
What works and brings in the best results changes over time, and I don’t want to decide what format an audience prefers before I’ve actually tested it. Let the data decide.
Different creative needs to actually be different
When I tell someone they need more creative variation, I often see the same pattern: one graphic with a photo on one side and a headline on the other, duplicated with a different background colour, then duplicated again with the headline nudged slightly. Four “different” creatives that are really one creative with the colour changed.
Real creative diversity looks different.
One creative might be a photo with a bold text hook. Another could be completely text based, no photo at all, just a statement that stops the scroll. A third might be a screenshot-style creative that looks native to the feed. A fourth could be a carousel, and a fifth a short talking-head video or B-roll with text over the top.
Even within static images, look for meaningful differences: a professional brand photo versus a casual phone photo, a question written across the image versus a creative that leads with a specific outcome.
Different structure, different text, different visual idea, that’s creative diversity.
Think in concepts, not variations
A useful way to approach this is to stop asking “how can I make five versions of this ad?” and start asking “what are five completely different ways I could communicate this idea visually?”
Starting from one Canva template and duplicating it five times will always give you five variations of the same idea.
Starting from five blank pages gives you five different concepts to test.
The text on the image matters here too.
If you’re promoting a free resource, one creative might state plainly what it is. Another might lead with the strongest problem your ideal client is experiencing. Another could focus on the outcome, and another could challenge a belief they currently hold.
You’re promoting exactly the same thing, but entering the conversation in completely different ways, and that’s what produces useful test data.
Don’t pick the winner yourself
It’s common to create five ads and immediately have a favourite, sometimes to the point of not wanting to test the others.
But you are not your ideal client, and the ad you’re convinced will win doesn’t always win. I’ve had clients tell me they don’t like a particular creative, only to watch it produce the cheapest leads in the account.
Unless there’s a brand reason to hold something back, give it a chance and let the data decide.
Your brand is bigger than one template
If you’ve invested heavily in your branding, this matters.
A strong brand is fantastic, and I’m not suggesting you abandon your guidelines.
But your brand is bigger than one Canva template. Your point of view, your messaging, your personality and the way you communicate are all part of your brand too.
You don’t need every ad to share the exact same layout, font size and photo treatment for someone to recognise you. Give yourself room to test.
If you want a practical starting point, put your current campaign’s creative side by side and look only at the visuals, ignoring the copy.
If you removed the text and stood back, would they all basically look the same? If so, that’s exactly where to start testing different creative.
Final thoughts
Creative testing isn’t something you do once and finish. Audiences change, markets shift, and even great creative eventually loses effectiveness.
Keep your winners running while they work, learn from what format, visual and text on image is connecting, then use that to shape your next round of creative testing.
Stop aiming for creative perfection and aim for useful creative diversity instead.
Your ads don’t need to look like they came from a professional agency, they need to stop the right person, support your message and give you enough variation to learn what your audience actually responds to.
If you’d like help working out what to test, reviewing your ads and understanding what your results are telling you, that’s exactly the kind of support we provide inside Abundant Ads Academy.
I would love to hear your thoughts...