For the last 100+ years the way we create ad creative has been a quest to create one ad to rule them all.
This is no longer the way forward as we wrote about here.
Obviously, the goal is still to find a winning ad. However, if you read just about every book ever printed on copywriting, they are all designed to help you write one great advertisement. That ultimate sales letter or that ultimate magazine ad etc.
With the widespread adoption of algorithms and machine learning in ALL of the ad networks today, this old way of thinking just doesn’t work anymore.
The new goal is creating “modular copy” a term our founder Justin Brooke invented to describe the process of creating lots of copywriting pieces that can be deployed in varying formats or modalities.
For example, in a previous article we discussed how Google now wants 15 headlines, 3 descriptions, and at least two images (one square and one landscape). That’s a prefect example of real world use case for modular copy and it’s very different from how advertisers have worked in the past.
In this article we are going to take a deep dive into creating your creative libraries and the tools we recommend.
Rapid Creation of Ad Creative - The Process
Despite the virus like spread of claims that AI is powering seemingly every piece of software today, it is still 99% just marketing hyperbole.
Essentially, everything these tools (software) are doing today can be done by hand, but could be done faster with a few tools. Much like a farmer can split firewood by hand with an axe, but with a firewood splitter he can split wood faster.
The reality is that these tools are using complex forms of “if/then” logic and machine learning to automate process that could still be done by hand. It’s important that you understand what’s happening underneath the hood, before you just jump into the tools. You’ll be much better equipped to make buying decisions once you understand the underlying processes.
Story time…
When our founder worked for Agora, a billion dollar publishing company, they had a huge bottleneck in ad creative creation. They would have to wait weeks for ads to be sent back to them. On his first week Justin opened up a spreadsheet, wrote 10 different headlines, 10 different descriptions, and found 10 images that fit the headlines.
All of these headlines and descriptions were pulled from the landing pages, this way they didn’t need to go back through legal or editorial approval.
If you do the math, that’s 1,000 ads.
10 headlines x 10 descriptions = 100 headline and description variations x10 images = 1,000 variations.
In just one hour he was able to create all the ads they needed for the next couple months.
Proof that anyone can do this… For free… By hand.
Tools are not what make you a great marketer. After all, it wasn’t the brand of typewriter that Hemingway used that made him such a good writer - was it?! No, and neither will software make you a better marketer, though they can make you more efficient.
If time is money, then saving time is saving money. That’s the attitude you should have about your tools. They don't make you better, but they can make you faster.
Rapid Creation of Ad Creatives - The Tools
“Power Tools is a set of 30+ smart features that you miss most in Google Sheets. The add-on not only reduces the number of mouse clicks on some routine operations in spreadsheets, but also offers solutions for common yet complex tedious tasks” — AbleBits.com
While many marketers spend whole days researching newer fancier tools, most of what needs to be done can be done with a simple spreadsheet tool. Google Sheets is what we use internally. With a little add on like Power Tools you get a massive enhancement to your skills and abilities.
If you play with it and have just a half ounce of cleverness in you, their merge functions can help you create ad copy lightning quick. Think merging cells with free | download | best with cells retargeting book | advertising book.
Which will output:
- Free Retargeting Book
- Free Advertising Book
- Download Retargeting Book
- Download Advertising Book
- Best Retargeting Book
- Best Advertising Book
That’s just one tiny example that I could come up with in 3 minutes while writing this article. Imagine what you could do in 2 hours.
Airtable + Canva
What do you get when you combine the software that claims to “Connect Everything” with another software that claims “Templates For Absolutely Anything.” You get the Superman & Wonder Woman of online business!
AirTable is going to give you the power of Google Sheets WITH Power Tools, plus a better looking interface and tons of collaboration features. And if that’s not enough you can also use it to create kanban boards and calendars too.
Then with Canva you’re going to be able to create image variations faster than anything we’ve tried in the last 15 years of running online businesses. Not just variations with different headlines, but overlays, sizes, colors, graphics, and more. Plus, you can also use it to create presentations, PDF’s, and all your social media or content marketing graphics as well.
This toolset is probably the pound for pound dollar for dollar best “stack” on the web for online business owners.
For example, with Airtable you can write a bunch of headlines and descriptions in different columns. Then go over to Canva, rapidly create 10 variations of your winning ad image, uploading those to the columns as well. Then tag 3 people on your team, comments, due dates, and turn the whole thing into a calendar or kanban board for deployment. It’s not only a creative creation duo, it’s also a whole productivity system as well.
If we stopped here, you’d already be more efficient than 80% of marketers.
At AdSkills, we believe in creating the best of the best when it comes to marketers, so let’s add some steroids to this tool stack.
Let’s make you more efficient than 99% of other marketers…
Creatopy + RevealBot
One lets you create endless variations instantly, and the other lets you automate their deployment and optimization.

Creatopy is actually a suite of tools, the one I’m specifically talking about is their “Feed Ad Builder” which lets you do everything we’ve talked about today in the easiest way possible. You’ll create a spreadsheet of all your images, headlines, descriptions, logos, colors, prices, call to actions, and then hit download. They’ll merge everything together into a folder full of images in the right file formats.
Then, you upload those to RevealBot which is an advertising automation wunderkind. RevealBot allows you to create all sorts of rules for automating the delivery of those creatives, measures their performance, as well as scale up or down based on KPIs. It’s the closest thing we have to a literal set-it-and-forget-it advertising tool.
Oh and it works with Facebook & Google.
PHEW…
Are you feeling the power yet?
If this isn’t raising your pulse, you might want to check your pulse to see if you have one!
I can’t resist…
BUT WAIT THERES MORE!
Promo + Glorify
Promo is what we use at AdSkills for putting together our video ads. We have a writer give us a script, then someone hires a VoiceOver on Fiverr, and that’s uploaded to our Promo account where we can sync up the VoiceOver with video footage. Done right you can make some great Youtube ads this way.
Fast, easy, and cheap too. We got it down to about $50 - $150 per video. If you can get it down any cheaper than that, please email us we will pay you $1,000 for an hour of your time to explain how you did it. Seriously!
What about Glorify?
Glorify is basically Canva but for eCommerce stores. It’s the best app I’ve ever seen for Shopify store owners and dropshippers to turn their product images into tons of ad variations quickly. If you’ve ever seen those bright attractive product ads in your feed, it’s likely they were made with this tool.
They even have a background extractor tool so you can turn your mugs, t-shirts, and doodads into exciting high contrast images that pop on the newsfeed. If you want scroll stopping power, Glorify is the tool for you.
Last but not least…
What if YOU don’t want to do any of this?
What if you just want to hire someone who’s already trained to do all of this, who already has all the tools to do all of this. What if you just want to hang out on your stand up paddle board drinking chai latte’s on the river while listening to TayTay shake it off?
No worries.
The AdSkills Matchmaker marketplace has got you covered. We've spent 6+ months building out our own tech platform that works just like Fiverr or Upwork. You can browse profiles, sort by ad network, see reviews, and hire certified ad buyers at the click of a button.
The best part...
Other marketplaces you never know the quality of the marketer you're hiring. With AdSkills Matchmaker you know that every ad buyer you hire is certified. They've paid thousands of dollars to go through the industries best training and are ripe for the hire. Go browse some profiles now, it's no cost and you won't even have to opt-in or create an account until you see someone you want to hire.
If you need help, give us a holler at support@adskills.com.
See you next week.
Justin Brooke,
Founder of AdSkills.com
P.S. I’d love to tell you how I got 10,000 leads a day using Google ads. It’s a masterclass I taught inside AdSkills.com and you can join today for less than $20 bucks. Use code SAVE20 today to take 20% off, FOR LIFE!
