How to Control YouTube Ad Creative Fatigue with this 3-Step System…

A couple weeks back we started talking about how to beat YouTube ad creative fatigue. And because many of you wrote in wanting to hear more about the topic, that’s exactly what we’re going to cover today.

But first, let’s do a bit of a review on exactly what pieces you need to have in play before you even run into this very challenging obstacle to scaling & maintaining scale on YouTube ads:

Step 1: The Biggest Challenge: Create a Winning “Control” Video

Let’s be clear: You can’t scale at all on YouTube unless you have a high-performing video ad in the first place. Want to see the key ingredients to do this? Go here see the full breakdown.

Step 2: Beat Creative Fatigue with New Intros

The first (and most straightforward) way to add life to a dying creative is this:

Create a new intro.

It sounds simple, however there is a bit of an art and science to it. So take a look at this post to see key takeaways from how one high-performance offer did it.

So when it comes to beating creative fatigue on YouTube, what’s after step 2?

The 80/20 Approach to Creative Fatigue Management

At our YouTube ad agency Inceptly, once we have created a control ad we are able to scale, here’s how we think about managing creative fatigue:

80% Iteration: 80% of our creative efforts go towards building variations/iterations of that control ad, to maintain scale long term.
20% “Moonshots”: 20% of our creative efforts go towards building “moonshot” creatives in an entirely different format / new angle / etc. with the aim to unlock a completely new level of performance.

(Leave a comment below to let us know if you’d like to see some examples of “moonshot” creatives you can use to brainstorm your own ads…)

Why is 80% focused on creating variations / iterations?

Most tests fail to deliver an ad you can scale with. There’s no other way to slice it. Very few of the YouTube ads anyone will build & test are going to allow you to scale to $20k/day and beyond. (That’s of course assuming you also have an offer that can allow this kind of scale in the first place). So once you have a creative you are able to scale, you need to have a strategy for keeping it “alive” for as long as possible.
Winning ad + Creative fatigue management = Profitable scale for many months. We’ve seen this play out again and again at our agency Inceptly: When you have a winning “core” ad and use new iterations / variations properly to mitigate creative fatigue, it’s possible to spend $30k-50k+ per day on the same “core” creative, for many many months, while maintaining and even improving profitability.

There are many ways to iterate on winning ads, besides adding new intros. Let’s take a look at another sure-fire way to beat creative fatigue and iterate on your winning ad...

Why Ad Copy is King

No amount of fancy editing, impeccable voice over, flawless imagery will help if what you’re saying in your ads doesn’t actually connect with and compel your audience to click and buy.

Format changes, a new spokesperson, better graphics, etc. - these are only worth looking at when you've cracked the copy since they don't make a big enough impact. However, once you have a winner, now these seemingly small changes can add up to big money since they can make your best ad better and make it last longer.

(Want to see some “lean” ways to test new copy ideas in YouTube ads? Let us know in the Comments below & we’ll include it in an upcoming post…)

But once you have identified winning ad copy, format changes can be extremely useful. In fact, re-producing the same ad, with the same copy, but with different editing / imagery / footage / etc. can help you extend the life of your winning ad for quite a while. And that’s what the following technique is all about:

Case Study: The “Re-Mix / Re-Shoot / Re-Format” Technique

To show you how to apply this for your own ads, let’s walk through a few examples how one company advertising on YouTube is using this “Re-Mix / Re-Shoot / Re-Format” technique, right now.

Control Ad

Here is the longest running control ad in our VidTao database for Tai Lopez’s REV offer, with approximately $100k in adspend the past month:

This ad was launched in August 2020, and here’s a link to the full video:

Variation Ad #1

Here’s another variation, launched April 12 2021, currently spending $80k/mo:

Check the full video:

Variation Ad #2

And here is another one just launched at the end of June 2021, spending around $1k currently:

Have a look at the full video.

(Note: look around inside the VidTao dashboard and you’ll see many more examples of variations they have run for this offer.)

Re-Mix

First, open the “video transcript” tab in VidTao for these example videos. You’ll notice how what’s said in the videos doesn’t change much, if at all:

You’ll see wording like:

“If you’re an accredited investor…”
“I’ve been doing some form of e-commerce going back to 2001…”
“Pier 1 imports, Franklin Mint, ...”

This is just a quick snapshot of the first 30-40 seconds of the video transcripts for these 3 ads. But if you take a closer look at the full transcripts inside VidTao, you’ll see how each script is essentially a re-mixed version of the same points. The angle is the same for all 3 of these ads (and most of the other variations of ads for this offer they are currently running). Ad copy has been re-mixed (at most) for the variations.

Key point: If you have a winning ad, when it comes to the ad copy itself, if it ain’t broke, don’t fix it. If you do anything, just re-mix it.

Re-Shoot / Re-Format

So if the ad copy is the same, what’s actually different?

You’ll see that each ad has entirely different visuals and in some cases, voice overs or voice over version.

Just off the bat, notice the different production style for the same voiceover section, between the control ad and ad variation #1:

Dig in and discover gold for yourself

Look at how many variations are currently running for Tai Lopez right now:

Go ahead and dig into these ads inside VidTao and see what iteration tactics ads like these are using to scale right now!

- Sponsored -

Inceptly: the performance video ad team behind $950M+ in direct response revenue

Inceptly High-Performance YouTube Advertising Agency

Inceptly builds YouTube ad creatives & manages over 5M USD/month in YouTube ad spend for companies like ClickFunnels, Descript, MindValley, Advanced Bionaturals, Organifi, and many more.

Are you spending over $1k/day on ads and looking to scale your business with YouTube ads?

Schedule your free YouTube ad brainstorming call here:

inceptly.com/call

What are your YouTube ad questions?

In the meantime though, what questions do YOU have about YouTube ads?

Let us know in the Comments section below, and we’ll make sure to cover your question in an upcoming post.

Have a great week!

The VidTao Team

VidTao.com

Are you spending over $1k/day on paid traffic and want to scale with YouTube ads? Schedule your free YouTube ad brainstorming call here: inceptly.com/call

VidTao.com is brought to you by Inceptly.com - High Performance YouTube Ad Creative & Media Buying Agency Managing $5M/month+ in YouTube Ad Traffic