What’s ACTUALLY working in ad accounts right now

Hey guys,

Here’s a question I got recently from Ash at Obvi.

And it’s one I’m getting more and more often with how volatile performance has been in a lot of accounts this year.

“What’s actually working today?”

Not the stuff that looks sexy. Or the stuff that Twitter thinks is working. But what the data is actually showing.

So I set myself on a mission to answer Ash’s question. And 6 hours later after trawling through 40+ ad accounts, I had one.

Here are the results of my findings…

But first, here’s what’s I’ve come across in AI this week:

• This guy made a pretty cool prompt for generating VSL scripts

• ElevenLabs released a feature where you can create any voice you want with just a prompt

• Cluely did a launch where they annonuced live AI meeting notes. I’m really curious to try this out

What’s ACTUALLY working in ad accounts right now

Longer Ads Are Dominating

This is the biggest theme I'm seeing across our accounts right now - and it's a clear trend at this point.

Many of the ads we're making currently are 1-3 minutes, but honestly, two of our biggest accounts have 5-minute ads as their top performer in 2025. We're talking about more education, more sitting in the problem, and really taking time to build the case before introducing the product.

One strategy that's been working particularly well: we take multiple top performers and stack them on top of each other, then rearrange the clips to create a cohesive narrative. This approach has crushed it in quite a few accounts.

Remember, there's no such thing as an ad that's too long, just an ad that's too boring.

Podcasts

People say that everyone's making podcast ads at the moment, but they work lol.

I've found the best pods fall into three categories:

1. Scripted 1-person pods - controlled messaging with authentic delivery

2. Unscripted 2+ person pods - natural conversation flow

3. Unscripted founder pods - authentic brand storytelling

Again, many of these ads are longer and sit in the problem for a while before introducing the product. There's no excuse not to write your scripts in Claude and book a studio out for the morning to rip 10x of these.

Good Creators

It feels like there's a power law distribution whereby the same creators are winning across multiple accounts - more so than in previous years.

What those creators have in common is that their ads feel genuine. They can come across as authentic on camera regardless of the topic. At the end of the day, UGC is just acting. And some actors are better than others.

Treat the good ones well.

UGC Still Works (When Done Right)

Yes, I said UGC. It's funny that everyone hates on UGC, then you look at their ad account and their top performer is a run-of-the-mill UGC ad.

You've got to be smarter with it today though. Make it feel like something you’d see on the organic feed. If you scroll the organic feed for 10 minutes, you'll realize that 95% of UGC ads still don't do this.

Obviously the messaging matters more than the format, but I've seen a lot of people write off UGC as if it can't work in 2025 - and that's simply not true.

Here’s an example of how we believe UGC should be done in 2025…

Authority Figures

Partnering with industry experts (actual experts that people can look up, not just UGC creators) and getting them to review your product is working incredibly well right now.

These ads often perform best when running to a 3rd party funnel - think "top 5 products," competitor comparisons, user stories, or "X reasons why" formats. Good third party funnels absolutely crush when executed correctly.

Here are a couple of themes I'm seeing that apply across multiple formats:

Controversial hooks

Make a bold statement that intentionally splits the audience, then back it up with education:

• “I did not know the news media were trying to divide us” - 70% hook for an unbiased newsletter publication

• “Caffeine doesn’t actually give you energy” - 66% hook for caffeine replacement

• “Your anti-aging skincare routine is actually accelerating your aging” - 62% hook for skincare brand

Claude often comes up with solid ideas for these if you give it good examples to work from.

Comment response formats

These work best when the creator directly addresses the comment in the first two seconds. Some of my favorites:

• Question hooks: "Best stevia for electrolyte haters?"

• Skeptical hooks: "$80 for a pair of jeans is crazy lol"

• Controversial hooks - see above

The reality is that making high performance ad creative is tough, especially with how fast things are moving this year. But I hope these insights are somewhat useful, and give you inspo for your next creative brainstorm.

What’s working for you right now? Hit reply and let me know, I’m VERY curious :)

Announcements:

We’ve now completed 3/18 sessions for the AI Creative Strategist Blueprint live training and the feedback so far has been amazing.

Next week on Tuesday, we have a special exclusive session on Veo 3 with PJ Ace that I can’t WAIT for. If you haven’t signed up yet, it’s not too late to join 500+ marketers from brands like Huel, David Protein and Jones Road Beauty.

Click here to enrol today.

Enjoyed this email? Forward it to a friend who’d find it valuable!

And if someone forwarded this to you, here’s a link to signup. I send tips on how to make more winning ads with the help of AI straight to your inbox every week!

See you next week,

Alex