7 Facebook Advertising Lessons I Learned from Barry Hott

Hey guys,

I asked my friend, mentor and business partner Barry Hott to give me 7 of the biggest mistakes that he sees direct response advertisers make in 2025.

As someone who’s overseen $1 billion (yes, that’s a B) in adspend and has seen the landscape change several times since he begun in 2008, there are not many opinions I value above Barry’s when it comes to ads.

These 7 advertising lessons are fundamentals we abide by at Adcrate and have helped us approach creative strategy and media buying to get results for our clients.

So without further ado, let’s get into them…

1. No-one knows or cares about your brand

This is probably the hardest pill to swallow for most marketers, but it's the foundation of effective advertising. We expect others to care as much as we do. The reality is that they don't.

When creating new ad ideas, assume:

• Nobody knows or cares about your brand

• Nobody has time for your content

• Nobody cares what you have to say unless it relates to them clearly and instantly

Your audience cares about themselves first. You need to earn the right to tell them about your brand by making content that's immediately relevant to THEM.

2. Make ugly ads

I know I talk about ‘ugly ads’ all the time but your audience really will pay more attention if your ad doesn't immediately look and feel like an ad.

It’s not about making things intentionally ugly, like filming in a dark room or on a low resolution setting.

It’s about meeting prospects where they’re at. Getting in their heads and thinking ‘what kind of content are my audience consuming organically?’

And for most brands reading this, your audience are consuming ugly content organically. WAY uglier than the ads you’re putting out.

3. Study organic content, not competitors

Most marketers make the mistake of obsessing over what their competitors are doing. This leads to a sea of sameness that nobody pays attention to.

You'll find way better ad inspiration on the organic feed than you will looking at competitors.

Look at what your audience is already consuming and emulate that style. Pay attention to:

• Camera angles 📸

• Lighting techniques 💡

• Audio quality 👂

• Pacing and framing 📲

💡Pro tip: Create burner accounts as if you were your audience and see what content they get served.

4. Clear beats clever every time

I see this mistake constantly.

Marketers often fall in love with their own cleverness. We create ads that make other marketers say "wow, that's brilliant!" But guess what? Your audience isn't made up of marketers.

Marketers love clever ads. Consumers ignore them.

The more you try to be clever, the more likely you'll make something that your audience doesn’t care about. Clear is better than clever for ads and communication in general.

5. Focus on hook relevance, not just hook rate

Secondary metrics like hook and hold rates have become something that a lot of advertisers obsess over.

But there's a critical nuance that most people miss - it's not just about getting attention, it's about getting the RIGHT attention.

I can’t tell you how many times we’ve had winning ads with <15% hook rates for this exact reason. Attention doesn’t mean anything if it’s not relevant attention.

6. Make ‘full-funnel ads’ to hit both warm and cold audiences

One of the biggest wastes of time and resources I see is creating separate ads for cold and warm audiences.

The funny thing is that many marketers have been trained to make different ads for warm audiences, but it's unnecessary. Great ads will work for both cold and warm audiences.

Create what Barry calls "full funnel ads" - content that's relevant to cold audiences first, then guides viewers through consideration to taking action.

Just like this one we made for Opopop. This ad is relevant to both warm and cold audiences (as evidenced by the fact it went on to spend a LOT in the ad account).

7. Just make ads

This is perhaps the most important lesson of all. The biggest barrier to creating great ads isn't skill, budget, or equipment - it's action. Too many marketers get paralyzed by perfectionism.

Anyone can make an ad. Shoot on your phone, edit in CapCut, and put it out there.

As Barry said: "Make the longest ad that you can that doesn't require any edits. If that's 6 seconds, okay. If that's 15 seconds, great. If that's 30 seconds, cool. If that's 3 minutes, amazing. Just shoot something."

Even if your first attempts fail, that failure is valuable. You'll learn from it and get better with each iteration.

That's all for today. If you found this valuable, share it with a friend who could use these insights!

Let me know which of these lessons resonated most with you, or if you have any questions.

Talk soon,

Alex