Our Best Performing BFCM Ad in 2023

Hey there,

Sorry if you haven’t seen much of me this week, I’ve been off Twitter to help the Adcrate team prepare for BFCM.

So to make up for it, here’s a juicy breakdown of our top performing ad over the holidays last year for one of our clients.

This ad was an absolute monster spending $70k+ on Black Friday weekend alone, and it wasn’t a sale ad.

Let’s dive in and look at 5 reasons why it worked. But first, here’s the ad:

Now let’s get to the breakdown 👀 Here’s why I think this ad was (and still, 11 months later, is) successful in the ad account…

#1 - Showing not telling

This ad didn't just say how comfy the jeans from The Perfect Jean are, it showed it.

And then showed it again. And again.

Anyone can talk about their product’s transformation, but it’s so much more powerful to show it.

Showing it gives your prospect irrefutable proof of what it is you’re selling and how it benefits them.

#2 - Key value props come first

The Perfect Jean has 4 value props - with comfort and stretch being the most important.

A lot of brands make the mistake of calling out low priority value props too early in the script.

Work out what people care about, then frontload your scripts with these key points.

#3 - Association with familiar experiences

We use similes a lot in our ads.

Instead of just claiming the jeans were comfy, we picked something customers already recognized as comfy and aligned our product with it.

‘This is just like [familiar solution]’ is such a simple but potent line to use.

#4 - Well selected creators

We often talk about using different creators, but this ad strategically uses a mixtures of different ages, ethnicities, and body types to hit different pockets of our audience.

Using multiple creators through mashups increases social proof, which is VERY important around Black Friday.

In fact, 91% of our top video ads last year in Q4 were mashups.

#5 - Natural edit

This might seem insignificant, but I think it's what made the edit feel ‘smooth’.

Notice how there’s slight variation on the text styles and planes of the text.

It not perfect—and it’s not supposed to be, because that’s exactly what happens on the organic TikTok/Instagram feed.

TLDR of the lessons learned;

1. Show, don’t tell

2. Cover the most important value props first

3. Associate your solution with familiar experiences

4. Used different creators to appeal to different pockets of your TAM

5. Edit like someone on the organic feed actually would

And by the way, if you want to see me building this ad live, I made a YouTube video going through the strategy process step by step:

The last thing I want to note is that this is an evergreen ad. A lot of advertisers make the mistake of only pushing sale ads over BFCM, but your evergreen ads absolutely can (and do) work at this time as well.

Make sale ads. Keep making evergreen ads. And whatever you do, PLEASE do not turn off your evergreen ads just to run sale ads.

That’s it for this week’s Creative Corner. If you enjoyed it, share it with a friend who may find it valuable!

Have a great weekend and I’ll catch you next week, where I’ll be dropping a podcast with a VERY special guest. 👀

See you then,

Alex