Where are we wasting budget?

What should we fix first?

These are three questions marketers and CEOs often ask me. The fastest way to answer them is to open the ad account and take a proper look.

After 12 years as a growth and paid ads consultant, I’ve noticed that one of the key areas where companies need help is auditing and improving their online ad accounts. (The others are growth strategy and measurement.)

Many of the Facebook ad audits I’ve done have happened during a one-hour consulting call.

We would discuss all sorts of other marketing questions and still find time for a quick account review.

With smaller accounts, the biggest issues can appear almost at a glance. But allow about one hour to work through the account properly, check the evidence and leave with a prioritised list of fixes.

So… where do you start?

How do you audit a Meta advertising account? What should you check? And how will you know what is actually worth improving?

And most importantly: how to keep your audit structured and readable by the rest of your team?

That is exactly what this guide will help you do.

We will go through ten areas, mark each one red, amber or green, and finish with a short list of actions.

The checklist covers both Facebook and Instagram ads because they are managed through the same Meta ad account and campaign system.

Meta ads = Facebook and Instagram ads.

AI-assisted audits

Can you use AI to audit and optimise your Meta ads?

Yes and no.

AI is useful for organising campaign exports, analysing spreadsheet data, spotting unusual changes, summarising creative results and suggesting hypotheses. Meta itself uses AI across targeting, bidding, placements, delivery and creative production.

But writing a full-scale audit is not the same as checking weekly KPIs.

AI only sees the data and instructions it receives. It can’t assess the overall account history, structure, and judge whether the ad creatives are optimal (value prop + ad type + graphic design).

Moreover, before AI can analyse an account properly, it needs access to the right data. That means setting up integrations, checking permissions, connecting reporting sources and deciding what business context to provide.

The setup alone can take a day. A focused manual audit of a smaller account takes about one hour.

That is why I still audit Meta ad accounts manually.

Past experience matters a lot, especially when several problems overlap and you need to decide what not to change.

This guide will help you through some complex issues and advise you on what works.

So… Let’s get to it!

Facebook ads audit checklist

Here’s a quick overview of the ten questions that I always ask, check and review when auditing a Facebook advertising account.

They’re based on 12 years of working with paid ads and seeing what works, what does not, and what only looks good in an Ads Manager report.

I’ve grouped them by what you’re looking at, although in practice many of the problems overlap.

For the best audit flow, go through all points in the suggested order.

Business and measurement level:

1. Do we know what a good business result looks like?
2. Is the conversion tracking set up correctly?
3. Can we trust and explain the results Meta is attributing?

Campaign level:

4. Are the campaigns optimised for the right goal?
5. Is the campaign structure helping or hurting delivery?
6. Do the budgets and bid controls give Meta enough room to learn?

Audience level:

7. Are we using the right audiences, signals and exclusions?

Ad design and landing page experience:

8. Does the account have enough strong and varied creative?
9. Do the ads work across the placements receiving spend?
10. Is the post-click experience actually converting?

Open Meta Ads Manager and work through the questions in order.

If you cannot see the company’s ad account, check that you are using the correct Business Portfolio and ask the in-house marketer or agency to grant the right access (Editor or Admin).

Here’s how to navigate to the Business Manager from a Facebook Ads account. It’s sort of hidden at the bottom of the left-hand menu.

1. Business goal

Is the business goal clear for your Meta ad campaigns?

Before you inspect campaign settings, define what good paid advertising results mean for the business.

Here are some examples of the top-level growth and marketing KPIs I track for the brands I work with. Note how they’re all linked to revenue.

A campaign can look efficient inside Ads Manager while failing commercially.

For example, a lead campaign may produce a low cost per lead. But if the leads never answer the phone, fit the ideal customer profile or become customers, the campaign is not working.

Do not begin with Meta’s dashboard. Begin with the business model.

These are the most common mistakes I look for:

• The campaigns support no clear business goal.
• The optimisation goals are not tied to revenue, qualified leads, subscriptions, app activity or another valuable outcome.
• The team has not defined the maximum acceptable cost per result, or can’t even track it.
• The campaign performance is judged by easy platform metrics like clicks and impressions, not ROAS (return on ad spend).

Mark this audit step red if: The marketing team cannot agree on the primary business result or the acceptable acquisition cost.

What to do next: Define one primary success metric and the budget limit around it before running campaigns.

2. Conversion tracking

Is your Meta conversion tracking correctly set up?

If the measurement is wrong, every optimisation decision after it is also questionable.

These are the most common mistakes I look for:

• The Meta Pixel is not receiving the expected browser events.
• Conversions API is missing where it would improve the signal.
• Browser and server events are not deduplicated correctly.
• Purchase value or currency is missing or inconsistent.
• The selected conversion event fires on the wrong action.
• Events Manager shows unresolved critical diagnostics.
• Meta-reported leads or purchases are not compared with CRM or backend outcomes.

For example, in the screenshot below, the Meta Pixel is firing properly, but the event match score needs improvement.

Compare Meta with your analytics, ecommerce platform, CRM or revenue records. The totals do not need to match perfectly because attribution methods differ. But you should understand why they differ.

Mark this red if: Important events are missing, duplicated, assigned the wrong value or materially disconnected from real outcomes.

What to do next: Fix measurement before making large budget, audience or creative decisions.

3. Meta-reported results

Can you explain what Meta is attributing?

Check the attribution setting used by 2-3 ad sets (they’re usually all the same).

An attribution window is the amount of time between someone interacting with an ad and completing an action that Meta can credit to that ad. Changing the window changes which conversions appear in your Ads Manager reports and can also affect how Meta optimises delivery.

Meta can credit conversions through several types of interaction:

• Click-through attribution: A person clicks the ad and converts within the selected window.
• View-through attribution: A person sees the ad, does not click it, but converts within the selected window.
• Engage-through attribution: In eligible campaigns, a person interacts with an ad or watches enough of a video, then converts within the supported window.

I use 1-day view and 7-day click for all my managed Meta ad campaigns.

These are the most common mistakes I look for:

• The attribution setting is not reviewed at ad-set level.
• Click-through and view-through results are not checked separately.

If Meta says a campaign generated 100 purchases and your store recorded 100 purchases in total, that does not mean Meta caused all of them.

Use platform reporting to understand delivery and optimise campaigns. Use broader business data to judge commercial impact.

Mark this amber if: The team knows that totals differ but has not documented the reasons.

Mark this red if: Decisions depend entirely on one attributed number that nobody has compared with real business results.

What to do next: Agree on a reporting view, document attribution assumptions and compare Meta with independent outcome data.

Moomin break

Congrats, you’re through the most technical part.

4. Campaign setup

Is your current campaign structure optimal?

Meta’s current campaign setup separates several decisions:

• Objective: The broad outcome of the campaign, such as sales or leads.
• Conversion location: Where the desired action happens, such as a website, app or messaging destination.
• Performance goal: The result Meta’s delivery system tries to get as efficiently as possible.

These choices should support the business goal you defined in step one.

ALWAYS optimise your prospecting-level Facebook ad campaigns on conversions.

If your campaign goal is conversions, don’t optimise on clicks. You’ll get bot clicks instead of real people.

Brand campaigns can be optimised on reach or clicks. I optimise remarketing on clicks or leads.

These are the most common mistakes I look for:

• The campaigns are not optimised for actions linked to revenue.
• Conversion campaigns are optimised for clicks instead of conversions.
• The optimisation event does not happen often enough for Meta to learn from it.

The idea is to have at least 50 conversions per week across the ad account. They do not all need to come from a single campaign. The point is to give Meta enough overall conversion data to optimise and give you enough results to spot meaningful patterns.

Expert tips:

1. Even if your goal is to collect signups, i.e. leads, you should use the Sales campaign objective and optimise on Sign Up event conversions.
2. I’ve tested optimising Meta campaigns on Purchase events when there were only 10 per week in total. It still brought better results than optimising on landing page views.

Mark this red if: Your campaigns are optimised for low-value actions.

What to do next: Optimise your campaigns on a conversion that fires at least 50 times a week.

5. Campaign structure

Is your Facebook ad campaign structure helping or fragmenting delivery?

The right structure depends on budget, markets, products, objectives, legal constraints, reporting needs and the amount of conversion data available.

These are the most common mistakes I look for:

• Too many small campaigns or ad sets competing for a small budget.
• Separate campaigns that have no meaningful difference in objective, market, offer or measurement.
• Frequent launching of new campaigns and ad sets that resets learning and makes comparisons difficult.
• Several small audience segments that could be combined.

Here are some suggestions from my own experience:

Three must-have campaign types. Launch Prospecting, Remarketing, and Re-engagement campaigns.

Separate all campaigns by countries. Different countries may have different economics, purchasing power or language requirements. Different products may require distinct offers and landing pages. Regulated markets may require tighter controls.

Recycle the existing campaigns. Also, many companies make the mistake of launching a new ad campaign every time they change their ad creatives or launch a new marketing campaign.

If your campaigns’ objective, audience logic, market and conversion event remain the same, it is better to keep the existing campaign and ad set, then change the ads inside them.

This preserves accumulated learning and makes performance easier to compare.

For example, here’s a sneak peek into one of the ad sets I’ve set up for Roleo. I launch new ad experiments every week, but instead of creating a new ad set every time, I pause the old ads and upload new creatives into the same ad set. It already knows my target audience.

The verdict: Launch new campaigns only when there is a real structural reason, not simply because there is a new visual or campaign name in the marketing calendar.

Mark this amber if: Several campaigns or ad sets target similar audiences, use the same objective or split a limited budget, but the account still collects enough results to evaluate performance.

Mark this red if: Spend and conversions are spread across so many campaigns or ad sets that none receives enough data to optimise, or overlapping setups make it impossible to identify what is driving results.

What to do next: Keep campaigns separate only when there is a meaningful difference in objective, country, economics, product, offer or conversion event. Put new creatives inside existing campaigns whenever the core setup remains the same, and consolidate duplicate or underfunded structures.

6. Budget and delivery

Is your Meta ad budget split correctly between campaign types?

Most of your Meta ads spend should go to the main conversion (prospecting) campaigns.

Remarketing and re-engagement should run in separate campaigns and receive 5–10% of the total Meta ad spend. These audiences are smaller, so they do not need the same budgets as prospecting campaigns.

How I imagine Meta ad algorithms react to a budget increase…

These are the most common mistakes I look for:

• Too little of the budget goes to the main conversion campaigns.
• Remarketing and re-engagement do not have their own campaigns.
• Remarketing and re-engagement receive far more than 5–10% of total spend without a clear reason.
• The remaining budget is spread across too many campaigns or ad sets.
• Bid caps or cost-per-result goals prevent delivery.
• Important creative tests do not receive enough spend to produce a useful result.

If demand changes significantly through the year, use a seasonal marketing budget plan rather than treating every month as identical.

What is a good Meta ads budget? My starting formula is simple:

Expected cost per conversion × the number of conversions you want = required ad budget.

For example, if you expect one conversion to cost €50 and want 50 conversions per week:

€50 × 50 conversions = €2,500 per week, or approximately €10,000 over four weeks.

This is a starting estimate. The actual budget may need to change as the conversion cost, volume and campaign performance change.

Mark this amber if: The overall split is sensible, but one important campaign or creative test does not receive enough budget to produce a useful result.

Mark this red if: Warm audiences consume too much of the budget, or spend is fragmented so widely that the main conversion campaigns cannot collect enough data.

What to do next: Rebalance spend towards the main conversion campaigns and consolidate low-priority campaigns that dilute delivery.

7. Audiences and exclusions

Are your prospecting campaigns targeting broad enough audiences?

In most Meta ad accounts I manage, broad targeting works better. I do not try to manually build the perfect prospecting audience from interests and small segments.

For prospecting campaigns, I target people in the right locations and within the typical customer age group.

Then I let Meta optimise the audience based on who converts. As the campaign collects conversion data, Meta learns what those customers have in common and finds more people with similar characteristics.

This is why correct conversion tracking and enough weekly conversions matter so much. If Meta receives the wrong signal, it will optimise towards the wrong people.

These are the most common mistakes I look for:

• Targeting very narrow audiences of fewer than 50,000 people. A good prospecting audience size is 500k+ people.
• Adding too many interests and restrictions instead of letting Meta optimise.
• Targeting several countries with very different purchasing power or languages in the same ad set.
• Targeting the same audience in several campaigns and creating unnecessary overlap.
• Continuing to target people who already converted.

Exclude recent purchasers, qualified leads and active subscribers from acquisition campaigns when showing them the same offer no longer makes sense.

Check whether remarketing reaches all the relevant groups: recent website visitors, basket abandoners and other high-intent users. Re-engagement should focus on past customers who have not purchased or used the product for a while.

Mark this red if: Prospecting audiences are unnecessarily narrow, the campaigns target the wrong locations or age groups, converted users are not excluded, or Meta is optimising from incorrect conversion data.

What to do next: Keep prospecting broad, use only the necessary age and location controls, exclude converted users, and let Meta optimise based on the people who convert.

8. Ad creatives & testing

Are your Facebook campaigns using the best-performing ad creative types?

Sub-optimal ad creatives is the most expensive Facebook ad mistake.

In the accounts I have audited, weak creative has been a bigger problem than the targeting settings.

Common issues include generic stock imagery, outdated-looking design, weak product visibility, no clear message hierarchy and ads that could belong to almost any brand.

As people see the same ads repeatedly, ad fatigue sets in, response rates fall, and CPC and CAC can rise quickly. Testing fresh creative gives Meta new options before performance deteriorates.

“Do the ads look attractive?” is subjective, which is why I base my decision on what I’ve seen working.

Video should be part of the review too. It is not always the best-performing format, but most advertisers should test it.

Check whether the product and benefit appear quickly, whether the opening works without sound, whether captions are readable and whether a long TV-style video has simply been dropped into Feed or Reels without adapting it. Simple motion, product footage and animated text can work perfectly well.

If you need a reference point, use the Meta Ad Library to review active competitor ads. Compare the clarity, variety, product demonstration and strength of the offer with your own account.

These are the most common mistakes I look for:

• Too few genuinely different creative concepts are tested.
• Too many or too few active creatives per ad set. A good number is 6–8.
• New ad creatives are not tested every week.
• New ads repeat the same hooks, customer problems, outcomes and proof points.
• The account relies on one format instead of testing static, video, carousel, creator or testimonial ads where relevant.

What about AI-generated ad creatives?

Can AI replace experienced graphic designers?

Meta now offers AI-assisted text, image, background, audio and video generation. There are also external tools that can produce ad variations quickly.

My view on this: Meta’s AI-generated creatives are absolutely awful and there’s no way to cut corners here. You need a human designer.

Compare this original ad with Meta AI production.

The AI-generated four ads below are noisy and scream stock footage and AI. I’d be insulted by a brand targeting me with any of these.

Treat AI output as drafting material (or slop to ignore), not as a finished ad.

AI can make more ads. Producing more mediocre work, faster, is not much of a win.

Weekly creative testing

Are you testing meaningful variety?

If you run Meta ads consistently, aim to test new creatives every week.

Creative development should be a weekly operating habit, not an occasional rescue project.

After I had been managing Arbonics’ Meta ad account for six weeks, the Facebook Media Library contained a wide range of layouts, messages and visual styles.

I had introduced that variety deliberately so we could learn what different audiences responded to.

Creative variety does not mean uploading fifty AI variations of the same ad.

Test meaningful differences:

• A different customer problem or USP.
• A new opening hook, offer or objection.
• A product showcase.
• A customer quote, creator review or other proof point.
• A different visual style or level of product detail.

There are three practical ways to produce new creative every week:

1. Learn to design and edit some ads yourself.
2. Hire a freelance designer or specialist agency.
3. Buy high-quality templates and adapt them to your brand.

Make sure the person creating the ads understands what converts on Meta ads, not just what looks pretty.

In my experience, relying only on an internal design team rarely works. They have higher-priority projects most of the time.

A dedicated marketing designer can help, but many traditional graphic designers are not experienced in producing engaging, fast-paced social video.

Smaller accounts may need to batch experiments less frequently so each variation receives enough delivery. The principle is still the same: keep learning and document what happened.

I use a spreadsheet to record the hypothesis, concept, launch date, spend, primary metric, result and takeaway for every meaningful experiment.

Use multiple ad formats

Are you giving Meta enough formats to work with?

Your creative mix can include static Feed and Story ads, short and long-form video, Reels, carousels, collections and shopping ads where relevant.

Different people respond to different formats, and not every format can serve in every placement.

A static ad, for example, will not give you the same Reels coverage as a portrait video.

Static ads are cheaper to produce and run, but video expands the placements and ways you can demonstrate the product.

Starbucks has 540 active Facebook ads running in the US. Note how the formats, layouts, and styles differ.

Pro tip: One tactic I use is placing static and video ads in separate ad sets when I want clearer control over delivery.

This can prevent Meta from spending almost everything on the cheaper static ads while barely testing video. It also makes the format-level results easier to compare. Do not split them automatically if the account lacks enough budget or conversions to support the extra structure.

Message and visual alignment

Does the visual communicate the value proposition?

The copy and visual should work together.

Your most important message or USP should appear in the visual.

Do not leave it only in the primary text. The whole ad should make the value proposition obvious within seconds.

Meta removed its old 20% text rule years ago. Text-heavy creative can work when the message is useful, readable and designed for mobile. The issue is not the amount of text by itself. It is whether the ad communicates one strong idea clearly.

Creative approaches worth testing:

• Discounts and special offers.
• Before-and-after storytelling.
• UGC-style videos built around a USP or entertaining story.
• Testimonials and creator reviews.
• Tutorial videos that demonstrate the product and its main benefit.

Start with these guides:

• Improve Your Meta Ad Creatives in 3 Steps
• Best Facebook Ad Examples

Mark this red if: The account has no testing cadence and relies on a few similar ads. The last creatives were updated more than 14 days ago.

What to do next: Plan the next four weeks of distinct concepts and give every test a hypothesis and primary business metric.

9. Placements

Do the ads work across the placements receiving spend?

You do not need to force every creative into one fixed set of dimensions. You do need to check how the ads actually render.

In my earlier audits, seven out of ten accounts were missing suitable creative for important placements. In every one of those cases, performance improved after the placement problem was fixed.

The most common issue is missing the extra ad format for Stories and Reels placements. Below’s an example of how a 1:1 ratio ad renders in stories: not nicely.

These are the most common mistakes I look for:

• There are no separate creatives for Feed and Stories placements for each ad.
• Feed, Stories and Reels versions do not feel intentionally designed.
• The main message is difficult to read on mobile.
• Video captions are missing, inaccurate or unreadable.
• The call to action does not match the destination.

Use the current Facebook and Meta ad sizes guide and Instagram ad sizes guide when preparing assets, then preview every important placement before launch.

Mark this red if: A high-spend placement shows cropped, unreadable, misleading or visibly broken creative.

What to do next: Fix the assets for the placements that matter before excluding placements solely to hide a creative problem.

10. Post-click journey

Does the post-click journey convert profitably?

Sometimes the ad account is not the main problem.

A strong ad can still send people to a slow page, unclear offer, broken form, confusing checkout or product page that does not match the promise.

The landing-page header does most of the work above the fold. It should immediately match the ad, show the product or offer, explain the value and make the next step obvious. If the header is vague, visitors start questioning whether they have landed in the right place.

For practical examples, see my six ideas to improve your website header.

These are the most common mistakes I look for:

• The ad and landing page communicate different messages or offers.
• The landing page is slow or difficult to use on mobile.
• The promoted product or next action is not immediately clear.

A low landing-page conversion rate can make every upstream metric look expensive.

Open the destination URL from the ad-level setup rather than assuming every ad leads to the intended page. Then look at the experience as a new visitor would:

• Is the page simple and focused on the offer?
• Is the next step obvious?
• Is the promoted product visible?
• Does the wording and visual style match the ad?
• Can someone complete the action easily on mobile?

If the ad promises a 50% discount, the landing page should immediately explain that discount. If the ad promotes one product, it should not lead to a generic page for something else.

Sometimes the ad and landing page are both weak or visibly disconnected.

In this case, it can be easier to redesign the website experience and ads together than to keep patching two experiences that were never built to match.

Mark this red if: The landing page is slow on mobile, does not match the ad, or fails to make the product, offer and next step immediately clear.

What to do next: Open the exact destination URL from each ad, fix the header and remove the biggest mobile conversion barrier before increasing spend.

Prioritising the fixes

What should you fix first?

Turn every red or amber finding into an action with three fields:

Start with the issue that makes the rest of the data least trustworthy.

Use a simple three-point priority system:

1. Fix now: The issue makes the data unreliable, blocks conversions or causes serious budget waste. Examples include broken tracking, the wrong optimisation event, the wrong market or a landing page that does not work.
2. Fix next: The account can still run, but the issue limits performance or learning. Examples include fragmented delivery, unclear attribution, weak creative variety or tests that never receive enough spend.
3. Improve later: The setup already works and the change is likely to be incremental. These are useful refinements, but they should not distract from more consequential problems.

When two fixes have the same priority, start with the one affecting more spend, more customers or more downstream decisions.

Record the date, reason and expected outcome. Give the campaign enough time and delivery to produce a useful signal before declaring victory.

Need expert help?

Some Meta ad accounts need more than a checklist to fix problems and start getting real results.

If you’d like to bring an experienced Meta Ads expert on board to manage your campaigns and run weekly creative testing, read how I collaborate with brands.

The post 60-Minute DIY Facebook Ads Audit appeared first on Marketing Fix blog.

The best tool for seeing other brands’ Facebook and Instagram ad creatives is the Meta Ad Library.

If you’re looking for curated lists of high-conversion ad examples from top brands, check out all the articles below.

• 240+ Best Facebook Ad Examples (2026 Update) – this guide
• 35 Best Facebook Video Ad Examples
• 80+ TOP Instagram Ad Examples
• 40 Instagram Story Ad Examples
• 105+ LinkedIn Ad Examples

I published my first article on best Facebook ad examples in 2018.

Since then, it’s become my habit to capture any great ad creative I spot on Instagram or Meta Ads Library. I save them in a Figma doc (image ads) and Google Drive (videos).

My personal gallery of Meta ad ideas holds well over 1,000 creatives.

Whenever I work on a new brand’s paid ad campaign, I return to this gallery to collect ideas. I also check out the competitors’ Ad Libraries (which is how my own collection expands).

The best thing about having a mixed library of B2C and B2B brand ads is that it helps you come up with out-of-the-box ideas. My go-to trick is to use consumer brand ads as inspiration for my B2B tech clients’ creatives, and vice versa.

In this list of 240+ ads, you’ll find my favourite brands’ advertisements, along with an inside scoop on the latest trends and best practices of Facebook ads.

Facebook ad best practices

What makes a great ad creative?

Based on 10+ years of experience here are my TOP 10 suggestions for successful Facebook ad copywriting and design:

1. Communicate a strong value proposition
2. Use high-quality images and videos
3. Test bright colours and high contrast
4. Add a clear call-to-action in the ad visual
5. Get started with single-image static ads
6. Add other formats like Carousel and video ads
7. Write value-driven ad copy and headlines
8. Follow correct Facebook ad size
9. Include special offers and promotions
10. Show proof like testimonials and ratings

What works in Meta ads in 2026?

I’ve noticed 3 key changes in the Meta ad creatives discourse over the past 12 months:

1. Self-proclaimed Meta ad experts on LinkedIn post about using AI tools to generate “100 creatives in 30 minutes.”

If you’ve ever tried out one of their prompts, you know that’s a lie.

High-performance ad creatives are still created by human designers, mostly in Figma (static ads) and Adobe After Effects (video ads).

2. It’s become much easier to create OK video ads.

Meta recommends running a mix of static and video ads, with more focus on UGC (user-generated content style) videos.

The most beautiful and complex video ads still require the Adobe After Effects skills.

But you can design pretty decent-looking videos that perform with CapCut and Instagram Edits.

3. Competition for people’s attention has never been tougher.

Whenever it gets easier to produce something, there’ll be more of it.

Everyone’s tired of AI slop, and even the most excellent original content suffers from this. This applies to newsletters and blogs, social media posts, and your paid ad creatives.

To stand out in 2026, start from defining your ICP (ideal customer profile).

Who are these people in real life? What are the aesthetics that catch their attention? What’s the best value prop to promote? What’s fun and engaging for them?

Wise’s Ad Library is one I check again and again. They always lead with relevant USPs in bold headlines, build comparisons, and address specific jobs to be done.

2026 Facebook ad examples

Ads that worked in 2020 may not deliver high ROI (return on investment) in 2026. You must be constantly experimenting with new ideas: formats, layout, colours, USPs, etc.

See inspiring Facebook ad creatives from brands across 10 industries:

1. B2C (business to consumer) beauty & health
2. B2C food & grocery products
3. Consumer apps & subscriptions
4. B2C technology products
5. B2C household products
6. DTC (direct to consumer) consumer products
7. B2B (business to business) software brands
8. B2B service providers
9. B2B enterprise-level products
10. Magazines and newsletters

1. Lovable

Best practices & ideas to copy: Strong number-led value prop (save 10k), bold and instantly recognisable brand colours, a lot of text in ad image (nobody reads the text description).

2. Claude

Best practices & ideas to copy: Claude’s (Anthropic) Meta Ad Library has 550 active ads. Why? Because they’ve created specific ads for all their ICPs: developers, founders, designers, etc.

This one’s for marketers. Clean design, familiar integration logos, carousel cards that show real work benefits.

3. Healf

Best practices & ideas to copy: Unconventional ad format that stands out in Instagram Feed, collaboration with a well-known health influencer, number-led “savings” value proposition.

4. Canva

Best practices & ideas to copy: Collaboration with an expert explaining how to use the tool, high-quality UGC video recording, product UI shown in the ad, teaching while promoting the product.

5. Vinted

Best practices & ideas to copy: Collaboration with a major local Gen-Z influencer to show how easy it is to sell on Vinted. On the other hand, the ad invites Aimee France’s followers to sign up to see her Vinted store.

6. Notion

Best practices & ideas to copy: Recognisable brand style, ads with white/light background pop out in the otherwise colourful Instagram Feed, super valuable discount offered, clear CTA inside ad image.

7. Revolut

Best practices & ideas to copy: Question that invites the viewer to think and engage, beautiful design that makes you want one of the cards, portrait-format creative that can be adjusted for Feed placements by Meta’s algorithms.

8. AG1 by Athletic Greens

Best practices & ideas to copy: I like how they’ve made a photo-based ad so much more than that. The bright green headline, overlays with supplement information… And managing to convey so much information by keeping the overall look uncluttered and on-brand.

9. McDonald’s

10. Klarna

11. Squarespace

12. New York Times

13. Loops

14. Templify

15. Shopify

16. Roleo

17. Burger King

18. Charlotte Tilbury

19. Sandqvist

20. Apple

2025 Facebook ad examples

My hand-curated selection of Facebook ads screenshotted in 2025. Enjoy and get inspired.

Boots

Best practices in this ad:

• Create special ads for holidays and occasions like Mother’s Day
• Include your logo in the ad creative
• Use bright contrast and colours
• Showcase multiple products in a carousel ad
• Use the “Shop Now” call to action to drive sales

KFC

Best practices in this ad:

• Promote special offers with limited time to create a sense of urgency
• Use super high-quality photography, enhanced with image editing tools
• Mention the product price in the ad if it’s impressively cheap

Revolut

What’s great about this ad:

• Promote an unique offer, in this case a customised bank card
• Edit static ads into videos: slight movement helps to capture attention
• Include App Store icons throughout the ad, indicating you’re promoting a mobile app

Sensodyne

What’s great about this ad:

• Include social proof, e.g. “No.1 dentist recommended brand”
• Make your product stand out in the visual for higher brand recognition
• Keep it simple and light: Meta ads with white background tend to perform better

Uber Eats

Twix

H&M

Pantene

Lidl

Fairy

Garnier

Doritos

McDonald’s

Charlotte Tilbury

Clarins

Mercedes Benz

Maltesers

Ninja Kitchen

Lofbergs

Maryland Cookies

Harry Potter

Transport for London

M&M’s

YSL Beauty

The Joy of Plants

Walkers

TK Maxx

Toblerone

Vinted

2024 Meta ad examples

The Meta ad examples in this section were collected in late 2024.

• SaaS & B2B Meta ad examples
• B2C digital product ad creatives
• Consumer product Facebook ads
• E-commerce & fashion ads

All of the Meta ad examples that you see here are original screenshots from my Facebook feed or from the Facebook advertising audits I’ve done, and Facebook Ads Library. The Facebook ads’ size is usually 1080 x 1080 pixels for square creatives and 1920 x 1080 for the Story format. 

#1 Heinz

#2 Blinkist

What’s great about this ad:

• The ad has a meme-like style that feels native in Facebook and Instagram
• The creative exemplifies the benefits of the product in a fun, engaging way
• The ad copy is straight to the point, and mentions a clear value prop

#3 Grammarly

What’s great about this ad:

• The visual includes the logo, clear USP, and CTA button
• The double-choice question in the ad invites the viewer to click and find out more
• Static ads tend to outperform video ads in square formats

#4-5 Vinted

#6 Shopify

#7 Wise

#8 Bilance

#9 Oreo

#10 IKEA

#11 McDonald’s

#12 Alohas

#13 Kerastase

#14 Ferm Living

#15 L:a Bruket

💫 2023 update! 💫

Doing the roundup of the latest top Facebook ad examples is one of my favorite tasks in January.

When researching this year’s winner, I went through 50+ brands’ Facebook Ad Library pages.

Here are the 3 key trends that I noticed in 2023 Facebook ad creatives:

1. Brands are sooo slow to update their creatives – many brands run the exact same ads as in 2022. While these creatives may have performed really well, testing a new creative idea biweekly would certainly yield even better results.
2. There are even more portrait-story format ads – some B2C brands have nearly given up on the Feed ad placements and bet big on Stories and Reels. Naturally, all portrait-format ads should be videos.
3. The UGC video ad trend – While promoting UGC (user-generated videos) is the #1 strategy on TikTok, it’s been only slowly adopted by Meta advertisers. In 2023, more brands will be collaborating with content creators to produce their video ads.

But hey, let’s cut the talk and let these smart Meta ads speak for themselves.

#1 Shopify

I chose this social media ad example by Spotify to open the roundup as it’s the epitome of the perfect ad creative in 2023.

It’s a video ad, it’s fast-paced and engaging, it features user-generated content, and it’s also showcasing the product later in the video.

#2 Grammarly

Grammarly is one of the brands I’ve been always following for the best video ad examples. In this simple video ad, they both tell an engaging story and illustrate how their product helps to improve the users’ everyday lives.

Tip: Keep in mind that having the best ad creatives is just one piece of the puzzle. In addition to having the best ad creatives, make sure to also get your Facebook ad campaign structure right.

#3 IKEA

It feels like the advertisements are getting more colourful and fast all across the board. Ikea’s taken the opposite approach. In the overloaded Facebook and Instagram feeds, this Ikea carousel ad example will feel like a breadth of fresh air.

This ad creative is also the perfect proof that you don’t need a huge design team and fancy 3D animations to create a well-performing ad. A bit of creativity will do.

#4 Burger King

Ufff, such a boring ad example from Burger King, the master of creative advertising!

But the point is… Even brands with huge offline and online brand campaigns are using Meta to boost user acquisition. The trick of adding numbers – low prices, discount %, etc. – is not going anywhere in 2023.

As I already wrote in my Facebook Ad Design Hacks, showing some numbers in ad creatives always helps to get better campaign performance.

#5 Starbucks

A “winning ad examples compilation” isn’t complete with a creative by Starbucks. I keep returning to this brand’s Ad Library page to gather inspiration. If there’s one advertiser that keeps continuously reinventing its ad visuals, it’s SB!

I chose this particular ad as I liked how it it combines the promotion of five different products in an single image. An idea to test in 2023! 😉

#6 Job Today

Time for some client appreciation! In 2022 and 2023, I’ve been helping Job Today with their growth marketing strategy and Facebook ads.

Together with their Brand team, we created a collection of 50+ different ad creatives in just two months. I find the video ad below to be a good example of how static ads can be turned into videos with reasonable effort and time.

#7 Canva

Testimonial ads aren’t going anywhere in 2023. There will only be more ways to visualize your user feedback: static ads like Canva’s, videos of user interviews, customer case studies, success stories, etc.

Testimonial and case study ads work well both in Prospecting and Remarketing stages, but you may want to create slightly different ad texts and CTAs for either option.

#8 Qminder

Client example vol 2! Here’s a social advertisement example that we created together with Qminder, designed by yours truly. The ad text is simple and mentioning 2023 on the first week of the year makes the offer feel 110% timely. We also mentioned the main benefits and features of the product to explain how Qminder can help companies improve their visitor experience.

( + I sometimes feel that my job title is Graphic Designer rather than Growth Marketer.)

#9 ClickUp

Recently, ClickUp has become one of the main advertisers whose Ad Library page I check for B2B Facebook ad inspiration. From memes to high-quality testimonial videos, they’ve got all the best practices covered.

This particular example serves as a reminder to promote special offers and discounts and make this the focal point of your ad visual. So simple, so efficient.

#10 Vimeo

When creating video ads for Meta, remember to show your brand in the first 3 seconds and then keep the viewers hooked with fast movement. Check out other Vimeo ads for more examples of fast-paced, informative video ads that introduce the product and features.

That’s it, folks. I could make this article another 50 examples long but in the end, it’s all about what works for your brand. My recommendation for achieving success with your Meta ads in 2023 is to put more effort and time into creating top-notch visuals.

Browse the Ad Library (and this article) for endless inspiration.

💎 2022 update! 💎

Every year, I see an increasing number of brands using video-format ads. Another trend I’ve noticed is that brand awareness-style ads (featuring filmed video content similar to YouTube and TV ads) are en vogue. However, I still believe that Facebook ads that showcase numbers, products, and promotions will bring you the best ROI.

The following 10 Facebook ad examples feature the best static ad creatives from some of the world’s leading brands. Hope you’ll find some inspiration for revamping your own ad creatives!

If you’re working on eCommerce ads, see more examples here: eCommerce Ads Guide & 20 Ad Examples.

#1 AirHelp

There’s no more timely Meta ad example to begin the 2022 showcase with than one advertising help with flight delays. :p

AirHelp’s ad hits right on the nerve: it asks a question that relevant audiences will identify with and offers a solution. Bonus points for mentioning the possible compensation amount.

#2 Bolt

It was encouraging to see that since I left Bolt, there haven’t been many changes to the top-performing ad creatives. We kept the design minimal and catchy and it worked like a charm.

When adding new ad creatives to your campaigns, always leave on some high-performers. Why kill something that’s working?

#3 Starbucks

Starbucks’s ad is a great example of a simple static ad turned into a video. The only things animated in the visual are various coffee packs. You don’t need a huge budget to create video ads, just be creative.

#4 The Ordinary

Think that simply featuring your product on a white background looks boring? Possibly. But it works – the focus is just in the right element. Moreover, this ad will be highly visible in the image-heavy Facebook and Instagram feeds.

#5 Oreo

I’ve always returned to Oreo’s ads for inspiration – they’re always on-brand and the team keeps coming up with new cool ways to make people engage with their product.

#6 Greenpeace

It’s hard to convince people to choose the ethical option. This Facebook ad by Greenpeace uses a soft shock tactic to raise awareness. Also, featuring media coverage of your product and brand is a smart way to add credibility to your message and mission.

#7 IKEA

Carousel ads are still a thing in 2022. Take this example by Ikea. I also like how they’ve managed to “brand” the regular-looking photos with a yellow line + in-image text. I bet this works much better than just a photo.

#8 Squarespace

Here’s one for the SaaS businesses. Instead of showing just a boring product interface, Squarespace shows the result of using their product. Also, using a textured background for a more interesting end result is a nice idea to test in 2022.

#9 The New York Times

This ad serves as a good reminder that Facebook removed its 20% text limit already a couple of years ago. Using text-heavy ads with bright colors is an interesting way to catch people’s attention.

#10 La Roche-Posay

We’ll end the 2022 showcase with another ad from the beauty industry. Similarly to the afore-mentioned ad by The Ordinary, this Facebook creative features a single product on a white backdrop. Only they’ve added a promo offer and some text. Test with both options.

💎 2021 update! 💎

This year, when browsing the Facebook Ad Library for the best new static Facebook ad creatives, I noticed several trends: bold use of color and text as well as a more creative and fun approach to visual communication.

Here are the top 5 trends in Facebook ad creatives in 2021:

1. All top brands use a mix of video and static ad creatives.
2. Advertisers create all their ads in two formats: for the feed and story placements.
3. There’s been a shift towards more colorful ads, introducing more flexibility in regards to the brand CVI.
4. Many brands use automation tools to customize ads for specific locations or product groups.
5. After Facebook removed the 20% text limit, more brands opt for big bold typography with text covering up to 90% of the visual.

#1 Gorillas

In 2021, the grocery delivery ups sprung up like mushrooms after rain. They all advertise pretty much the same message: Get your groceries delivered in 10 (or 15) minutes.

This ad example by Gorillas is exemplative of several design trends: eye-catching colors, bold typography, and a locally customized messaging. 

#2 Nike

Compared to boring product photos on white background (which Nike is also heavily advertising), this creative will attract much more attention in the Facebook feed full of photos and news articles.

If you’re creating ads for an eCommerce brand, test showcasing your products on a colorful backdrop instead of a plain white background.

#3 Canva

This Facebook ad by Canva manages to include two product screenshots AND a headline AND a CTA button. Props to their designers.

 #4 Spotify

Spotify has been using colorful illustrations in their ad visuals for years, so they’re rather leading a trend than following it. In 2021, more brands have connected with designers to create custom illustrations to be used in social media and ad visuals.

As a fan of beautiful illustratorial work, I consider such ads to have a positive effect on the long-term brand perception, even if they may not perform as well CPA-wise as more plain and straightforward creatives.

#5 Restream

Restream’s ad comprises several visual trends: 3D illustrations, gradient color schemes, and bold typography. Moreover, the ad copy is short and straightworward, highlighting the top features and benefits of the product.

Discloser: I am currently working with Restream on their Facebook ad creatives and campaign management.

#6 Bolt 

The advertising team in Bolt is one of the most performance-oriented that I’ve encountered, so checking their ads is a good way to uncover the latest Facebook advertising hacks and trends.

Bold typography, emphasizing relevant numbers, and customizing the ad to the location that they’re targeting help to attract the viewer’s attention as well as make them click and download the app to get the deal.

#7 Klarna

If you want your Facebook ad to feature a photo, try applying it inside a geometrical shape and adding some colorful background. Much more visible and efficient than a basic picture.

#8 Starbucks

Similar to the Nike ad above, Starbucks is placing their products on backdrops bursting with color. That’s been a strategy used by the coffee brand for several years already, so something about it must work.

#9 Squarespace

This text-only ad by Squarespace inspired me to test a similar aesthetic approach with several of my clients. In most cases, ads with heavy text performed surprisingly well. 

Now that Facebook is not disapproving text-heavy ads anymore, it is worth testing a simple ad with colorful background and well-chosen bold fonts. Add some emojis, highlighted words or illustrations to make your ad more interesting.

#10 Revolut

Contrary to most advertisers avoiding dark creatives, Revolut’s going against the flow.

However, I’d recommend to first test dark-shaded ads against light and colorful ones and only doubling down on those once you see that they perform well. In my experience, light-backgrounded and colorful ads outperform very dark creatives.

#11 Snickers

If you’re advertising to millennials and even younger audiences, check out what Snickers is doing with their ads. The creativity of their creative agencies seems to be boundless. Or maybe they just ate a Snickers…

#12 Gorillas

Another strong Instagram ad example by Gorillas, this time centering the visual around number 10 – this is how much it’s supposed to take to get your groceries delivered.

#13 VanMoof

There are three things that make this ad rather smart: the use of strangely positioned bike, light colors, and customized location in the in-image headline. As a combination, I’d assume it performs rather well for them.

#14 COS

Sales ads do not have to look cheap. COS has found a way for to get their -50% sales promotion across in a simple and arguably stylish way.

#15 McDonald’s

We’ll end the 2021 ad example showdown with an ad by McDonald’s. First of all, offering to give anything away for free always gets people clicking. But also, the 3D typography and custom illustrations make the ad look much nicer than a photoshopped burger picture would. 

Colors, illustrations, bold typography… What a 2021-trendy ad.

🎈2020 update! 🎈

To keep this article from becoming too heavy to load, we added 18 new paid social ad examples from 2020 to another page. Check them out here.

Looking for Instagram ad examples instead? Here are 84 best Instagram ad examples and 40 good examples of Instagram story ads.

As you work through this article, you will:

• Have a better sense of what’s working
• Have many new ideas for improving your Facebook ads
• Feel inspired to set up new types of ad campaigns

How to find Facebook ad examples?

If all these ad creatives showcased in this guide are not enough for you or you want to see more ads from a specific brand, you can easily do it.

In 2019, Facebook released their Ads Library to create additional transparency around the ads any specific Facebook page is promoting.

You can type in any brand name and pick a location to see what ads they’re running.

Truth be told, I’ve tested out the Ads Library on many occasions and seen that only a fraction of all the live ad creatives are visible there (when comparing to the ads I know a brand I’m working with is running or the ads I’ve been shown by specific brand in my Facebook Feed.) But hey, it’s better than nothing!

Also, AdEspresso used to have an Ads Gallery that showed thousands of Facebook ad creatives. As of July 2019, they have closed it down. 

Get Facebook ad tactics straight to your inbox: 35+ Best Marketing Newsletters in 2026, Read by TOP 5% Marketers

NEW 20 Facebook ad examples, 2019 edition

#1: DoorDash

#2: Calm

#3: Oatly

#4: Design Pickle

#5: Bolt

#6: Mailchimp

#7: Finnish Design Shop

#8: Slack

#9: Hired

#10: PayPal

#11: Lyft

#12: Blinkist

#13: Ben & Jerry’s

#14: Holini

What makes this ad so good:

Did you notice the “? link” in the ad copy? Adding an extra link for people to click on can increase your Facebook ad’s CTR. + Holini’s also smart about their ad design – use a custom colour filter to turn any stock image into a branded image.

#15: Intercom

#16: Shopify

#17: The New York Times

#18: Asana

#19: Starbucks

#20: Warby Parker

When browsing for new ad examples for the 2019 update, I noticed a few things:

1. An increasing number of advertisers are running video ads – of all the brands I checked out in the Facebook Ads Library, 9/10 had video ads running.
2. Instagram Stories placement is still strongly underused – while Facebook has told that Stories will soon have more views than regular Instagram posts, only 3/10 advertisers had portrait-format Instagram Stories creatives.
3. The best practices haven’t really changed – while there’s a growing trend in colorful and “artsy” ads, the main hacks have remained unchanged: add copy in the ad image, keep it short and catchy, have a clear call-to-action, and so on.

140+ Facebook ad examples, 2018 edition

#1: MOO

What makes this ad so good:

The bright Facebook ad design immediately catches people’s attention + the ad’s headline says clearly what it is they’re selling. When creating Facebook ad images, it’s always a good idea to use an original photo or animation – it’s an easy way to catch people’s attention and show off your branding.

#2: Pipedrive

What makes this ad so good:

The in-image copy makes sure the most important copy gets immediately seen + a CTA button hints people can click on the ad. Pipedrive’s SaaS Facebook ad also makes it easy to understand what product they’re selling – it’s made loud and clear in the ad image, main text, headline, and link description. (Look at it as an interesting use of repetitive yet efficient messaging.)

#3: MindTitan

What makes this ad so good:

This ad example uses the carousel format that lets you add up to 10 images into a single ad (the perfect way of showcasing your products / telling a story) + the ad’s design has an eye-catching contrast to it. You can use Facebook carousel ads to tell a story, showcase your products, or list the benefits to customers (as MindTitan’s ad does).

Full disclosure: MindTitan’s one of my clients ATM.

#4: PayPal

What makes this ad so good:

The icons help to convey the message and make PayPal’s ad a little more engaging, leading to lower Facebook ads cost. A common line between great B2B and B2C Facebook ad examples is their masterful use of colour and minimal design.

#5: Canva

What makes this ad so good:

Canva’s ad is fun and simple at the same time. When you think about your Facebook feed, it’s usually filled with photos. Using a white colourful Facebook ad design helps to get your ad noticed.

#6: Shopify

What makes this ad so good:

Not all Facebook ads are focused on sales. This example by Shopify is using Facebook to share their blog content and increase brand awareness.

#7: Autopilot

What makes this ad so good:

Autopilot ad is a great example of SaaS marketing done right. The text lists their product’s benefits while the carousel’s images showcase their product views and features. As a result, this Facebook ad informs the viewer about Autopilot’s product even before they visit the website.

#8: Zendesk

What makes this ad so good:

The striking minimalism of this ad makes sure people will immediately realize what the product and offer (Try Zendesk Chat) are about. This ad would make for a great remarketing ad for people already familiar with the brand.

#9: Google

What makes this ad so good:

Did you know you can also add videos to your carousel ads? I’ve seen this approach work well for SaaS Facebook ads as it makes an otherwise boring product screenshot come to life.

#10: GoPro

What makes this ad so good:

If you’ve recently launched a new product, you could create a Facebook Custom Audience and advertise it to the existing customer base. How to get them to buy your newest product – offer a trade-up like GoPro.

Read more: How to Set Up Low-budget Facebook Ad Campaigns on Your Own

#11: Hootsuite

What makes this ad so good:

Limited-time offers create a sense of FOMO and make people act quicker (= more signups in a smaller timeframe). When advertising limited-time offers, make sure your campaign budget’s big enough to quickly reach all your audience members.

#12: Teabox

What makes this ad so good:

Teabox’s Facebook video ad example tells a story while also informing people about their upcoming sale. Presale countdown Facebook ads are a great way to build up some hype and get people to save the date.

#13: Leadpages

What makes this ad so good:

If you’ve got some impressive numbers up on your sleeve, why not share these in your Facebook ad. From the no. of users to the no. of people benefitting from your product, mentioning them helps to create more trust in your brand.

#14: OptinMonster

What makes this ad so good:

OptinMonster’s Facebook ad example gives a visual clue to the benefit of their product. This ad certainly caught my attention.

Tip: if you’re doubting between multiple image options, you can always do some Facebook A/B testing to find out what works best.

#15: AWeber

What makes this ad so good:

This Facebook ad isn’t trying to sell you anything. However, it’s asking people to take a fun survey and to submit their email to get their results. In the long term, this Facebook ad is bringing in many new email marketing leads – another interesting way of using Facebook ads as a PPC channel.

#16: Taxify

What makes this ad so good:

Instead of using stock images or screenshots, you can use design tools like Illustrator and Sketch to create a more visual representation of your product. If you consider how crowded Facebook newsfeed is with photos, using a custom design will help you get higher CTRs. And using speed lines wouldn’t hurt, either.

#17: Cobiro

What makes this ad so good:

Cobiro’s Facebook ad is mentioning two well-known brands and even using Google AdWords’ logo. The reason this works is that people will feel more positive about this small brand as they like the bigger brands mentioned.

However, be careful with using other brands’ logos in your ads – you actually need their permission to do so.

#18: IKEA

What makes this ad so good:

The next time you need to announce your sales, instead of creating a complex ad image, simply lay your message out on a blank colourful background. IKEA’s Facebook ad is stunning in its simplicity and efficiency.

#19: Lyft

What makes this ad so good: Well-chosen contrasting colours + straightforward in-image text. In addition, Lyft’s ad copy explains their offer more in detail for those interested.

#20: Soylent

What makes this ad so good: Soylent’s listing all their product’s benefits in the ad copy. You too can use emojis and symbols to add special characters in your ad copy.
Here are some to get you started: ➕ ➡ ✓

#21: GitHub

What makes this ad so good:

This Facebook ad example by GitHub is one of my favourite latest finds. Maybe it’s just me, but I find the gradient background perfect.

Read more: Instagram Ad Design and Copy – The Beginner’s Guide (2018 Update)

#22: SUMO

What makes this ad so good:

This ad looks like it’s part of a Facebook retargeting campaign promoting the the product to people who already tested SUMO’s products. If you’re able to create remarketing audiences of at least 100 people, it’s worth setting up a dedicated ad campaign.

#23: Venngage

What makes this ad so good:

This Facebook ad is sharing an industry report. But before people can download it, they’re asked to submit their email address. + Mentioning the year of your content helps to show it’s relevant NOW.

#24: Drip

What makes this ad so good:

In addition to mentioning the magical word FREE, this Facebook ad example by Drip features a happy-person-photo. All things considered, people will feel more positive about the offer and associate the email course with positive results. A similar approach would also work well in Instagram campaigns.

#25: Asana

What makes this ad so good:

I’ve always been a huge fan of Asana’s colourful Facebook ads – they catch your attention right then and there. When designing your Facebook ads, put it some extra effort as your ad’s image is arguably its most important element (it’s the first thing people will notice).

#26: Allsaints

#27: Happy Socks

What makes this ad so good:

Instead of just promoting their product, Happy Socks is adding a small discount to their offer, making it a lot more attractive to potential buyers. A similar ad could also be used as a remarketing ad – if a website visitor didn’t make a purchase on their first visit, you can offer them a discount to incentivize them to return.

#28: Inkbox

What makes this ad so good:

This Facebook ad copy delivers only the most important information. However, Inkbox’s ad text shows that they’ve perfectly understood their product’s key benefits for the customers.

#29: Adobe Stock

What makes this ad so good:

Another easy way to add a layer of branding on a stock photo is to darken the background image and place your logo over the image. This way, you’ll also increase people’s awareness of your logo.

#30: Cleanly

What makes this ad so good:

This Facebook ad reminds people of a common problem and offers a better solution. Using the “bad” and “good” comparison is a simple way to show people why your product’s beneficial to them.

#31: Hired

What makes this ad so good:

Hired’s Facebook ad example’s copy is actionable and tells exactly what people will get as they click on the ad.

#32: Kissmetrics

What makes this ad so good:

This Facebook ad example is all about the customer – you. “Get, keep, grow…” and other actionable verbs explain the products’ benefits. + the carousel’s symmetry is just spectacular.

#33: New Scientist

What makes this ad so good:

When selling subscription services, you might want to first offer people a free or discounted trial period. Once they’re happy with what they see, you can upsell.

#34: Bloomberg Business

What makes this ad so good:

This example is a little bit different from the rest as it’s a Facebook app install ad.

One of the best practices when promoting a mobile app is to include the name of your app in the ad image. Moreover, to make it clear to people it’s an app, advertisers can include the App Store icons in the design.

#35: Amazon

What makes this ad so good: While this Facebook ad has a really strange headline, it could serve well as a remarketing ad for people interested in this particular product or other toys.

#36: Square

What makes this ad so good:

Here’s another great example of Facebook carousel ad done right. Square is using the carousel’s cards to explain how their product works.

#37: HubSpot

This Facebook ad by HubSpot is a good example of the latest trend: placing the logo and simple text on a solid-color background.

What makes this ad so good:

The best way to inform people about a discount is to place the -X% sign in the Facebook ad image. Overall, using numbers in your Facebook ads is always a good idea.

#38: Heap

What makes this ad so good:

Heap’s Facebook ad is another good example of namedropping. One way to explain your new product to people is via another product they already know.

#39: Grammarly

What makes this ad so good:

Grammarly’s Facebook ad makes a big promise: “Your Life’s About to Change.” Using this copy in the headline is sure to spark many people’s curiosity.

#40: Google

What makes this ad so good:

Google’s Facebook ad is not really about their products. It’s about YOU. When creating ads, think about your customers instead of your product. What’s the unique value you can add to their lives?

#41: Dropbox

What makes this ad so good:

This Facebook ad mentions the size of Dropbox’s user base. If 90k people are already using it, it must be pretty good, right? When you’ve acquired enough customers, you can test a similar approach.

#42: Adidas

What makes this ad so good:

Here’s a great example of how to showcase your product in a simple yet creative way.

#43: Inbound.org

What makes this ad so good:

This Facebook ad example is noteworthy for two reasons: First, how many Facebook ads have you seen that combine black-and-white with bright colours? Second, the ad’s headline addresses directly their core audience – marketers. A more personalized approach is also preferred when creating highly converting ad campaigns.

#44: The Kooples

What makes this ad so good:

This is an example of Facebook dynamic product ads. Here’s how it works: you set up your product catalogue on Facebook and once a person views a particular item on your website, they’ll be shown a personalized retargeting ad with the very item. If you’re in eCommerce, this is your thing!

#45: MailChimp

What makes this ad so good:

In addition to being an amazing email marketing tool, MailChimp’s ads also beam with authenticity. Using a custom design for your Facebook ads is always a preferred option (compared to generic stock images).

See how to set up low-budget Facebook ad campaigns without using boring stock images.

#46: Sleeknote

What makes this ad so good:

Sleeknote’s Facebook ad promises quantifiable results, giving a better sense of how much their product can improve your marketing results.

#47: Asos

What makes this ad so good:

If you’re selling multiple products, use a carousel ad to show people all of them. Moreover, Asos’s ad is super simple, making a light and pleasant impression. Even the SALE sign isn’t too intrusive.

#48: Upwork

What makes this ad so good:

This Facebook ad by Upwork is also focusing on solving a problem for the customers. When writing your Facebook ad headlines, try to use an actionable verb such a “Get” “Try” “Discover” to nudge people to take that action.

#49: ZenHub

What makes this ad so good:

Lately, gradient’s made a comeback and is being used across websites, ads, and other branded material. If you haven’t tried a gradient Facebook ad yet, it’s time to do it.

#50: HubSpot

What makes this ad so good:

One way to get people read the full ad copy is to pose an interesting questions. HubSpot’s Facebook ad image asks “How well do you rank for SEO?” Now which marketers wouldn’t want to find out the answer?

#51: GetResponse

#52: GraphicStock

#53: Marvel

#54: Packlane

#55: Nike

#56: Trapica

#57: Yesware

#58: Copy Hackers

#59: Flywheel

#60: Leadpages

#61: Moz

#62: Sprinklr

#63: The Econimist

#64: Tubular

#65: WishLoop

#66: AppExchange

#67: AdStage

#68: Blue Bottle Coffee

#69: Groupon

#70: Harvest

#71: Google Cloud

#72: Krowdster

#73: Compass

#74: Drift

#75: Eventbrite

#76: CoSchedule

#77: Dell

#78: Amazon Prime Now

#79: Autopilot

#80: LinkedIn

Aaand you’ve reached the end of this rundown.

If you’d like to see your company’s amazingly awesome Facebook ad examples featured in this list, reach out.

The post 240+ Best Facebook Ad Examples (2026 Update) appeared first on Marketing Fix blog.

The best marketers don’t excel in one single channel.

It’s not about being a t-shaped marketer, either.

And it’s also not about good taste, as the business media and influencers have been touting for the past six months.

What makes a good marketer is the ability to learn and adapt.

Let me explain.

Between 2015 and 2026, Meta ads became 5-10x more expensive, and AI killed 90% of organic website traffic from Google.

But it doesn’t mean that paid social ads or content marketing no longer work.

Marketers just need to approach these channels differently.

Facebook and Instagram ads now require different ad formats, and higher-quality designs that communicate more, faster.

Content marketing, when done on a website, still requires a high domain authority and fast loading speeds. Your articles still need to rank in top Google 1-5 spots to be picked up by AI tools and listed in query replies. You just need to track the results differently.

But the truly efficient content marketing now happens in newsletters and social media posts.

This necessity to adapt (to new technologies and trends) also applies to early-stage brand, marketing, and growth.

The principles are 100% the same in 2026 as they were back in 2015.

So w/o further ado, here they are.

10 principles of brand, marketing, and growth for early-stage companies

After helping 50+ European tech startups with early-stage growth, here are the key learnings that I continuously bring to all new projects.

Brand:

1. Invest in strong (enough) brand early.
2. Understand your ICP (ideal customer profile).
3. Create what your ICP wants.

Marketing:

4. Focus on 2-3 marketing channels.
5. Copy what works for other brands.
6. Prioritise quality over quantity.
7. Multiply your marketing budget 5-10x.

Growth:

8. Build growth loops. 1 user » 1.5-2.5 users.
9. Run 2 experiments/month, minimum.
10. Don’t worry about monetisation (just yet).

Bonus: Hire top experts & excited beginners.

1. Invest in strong (enough) brand early

In my humble opinion, the biggest mistake that early-stage startups make is not investing in a strong brand.

This is especially true in Eastern Europe and the Baltics.

“It’s the product that people care about,” the practical mind says.

And I do agree. The product does have to be great. However, the same applies to your brand.

Why?

Imagine meeting a new person. You either like them or not.

It’s exactly what happens when you go to a company’s website (or App Store page) for the first time.

You either like the brand or you don’t.

As an early-stage company, you only have one chance to make a good first impression with each potential customer.

People don’t return to brands they didn’t like in the first place. (Either because of a cheap-looking brand or bad product experience.)

If I could do one thing differently in early-stage Taxify (now Bolt)…

Bolt now has a world-class brand.

In hindsight, I wish we’d invested in a high-quality brand that looks trustworthy to people in Western Europe, too.

But I can’t help but think that we’d grown much faster in London and Paris, had we launched there w/ a higher-quality brand.

2. Understand your ICP (ideal customer profile)

In order to build a successful product and brand, you need to understand your target audience.

Who is your ICP – ideal customer profile? Is there a clear understanding about it across the organisation?

The ICP is focused on your most valuable customers and prospects who are also most likely to buy.

When you google customer persona development guides, they often look like personal CVs.

This is not a sufficient way to define a customer persona.

You want to have a deeper understanding of their behavioural patterns, lifestyle, everyday struggles and needs, touchpoint marketing channels, etc.

Below is 1/10 of the ideal customer persona mapping sheet I use on early-stage brands.

3. Create what your ICP really wants

This is true for both your product features and marketing assets.

The not-so-nice truth about working w/ early-stage companies is watching many of them creating a product that nobody wants or needs.

On the marketing side, once you know your ICPs (ideal customer personas), you can develop value propositions that:

1. … are actually useful and relevant to them.
2. … you can truly deliver on.
3. … differentiate you from the competition.

Both your product and marketing should solve your ICP’s pain points.

And by pain points I mean a pain so great they’re willing to break the status quo and give your product a go.

For example, Wise knows their ICP’s main goal is to save money on transfers.

They’ve added a comparison of major banks right on their home page.

4. Focus on 2-3 marketing channels

… instead of doing 10+ channels badly.

I often have to negotiate w/ CEOs who’ve read some LinkedIn post about a new marketing channel X and think we need to try it.

“But why do you think it’s more efficient than our current channels that deliver positive ROAS?”

Silence.

Especially in early stage, when the founding team members’ time is your most valuable asset, it’s practical to focus on fewer marketing channels.

Choose 2-3 marketing channels that reach the maximum number of your ICPs.

In B2C, it could mean organic social media, and paid social (Meta) ads. Or an OOH marketing campaign. Or PR stunts. Or Reddit. Or building a content system that helps your product get referred by AI tools.

In B2B, LinkedIn (organic + paid), content marketing optimised for AI agents, and marketing-supported sales outreach work well. Partnerships and affiliate programmes also, when executed well, return a high ROI.

As a performance marketer who loves to experiment w/ ad designs, I usually start from paid social (Meta + LinkedIn) to launch user acquisition fast. Later, I add a few additional channels, depending on the ICP and product.

5. Copy what works for other brands

There’s no such thing as innovation or uniqueness in contemporary marketing. It’s all tried and tested tactics and channels.

What matters is how you approach each channel.

Research what’s working for other brands.

Don’t copy your competitors, but other brands who target your ICPs.

The easiest way is to check their website, social media channels, and paid ad libraries (Meta and LinkedIn).

See where they invest most.

Is it content, creators, partnerships, paid ads, organic social, live events, webinars, etc.? Is their sales team active on LinkedIn?

For example, a quick scroll through Clay’s LinkedIn ad examples tells me that they run lots of webinars w/ partners and creators, and publish in-depth industry reports.

6. Prioritise quality over quantity

“This marketing channel doesn’t work for us.”

Sounds familiar?

Sometimes, it’s fair to scrap a marketing channel (or experiment) and admit defeat.

More often, marketers say “it’s not working” after testing a channel for 72 hours.

Don’t scrap a marketing channel because of your own scrappy work.

Give it at least 30 days of hard work.

Another problem I often see during marketing audits is the low quality of marketing assets.

I’ve seen dozens of company blogs that have 50+ articles. But none of them is actually good… Nor ranks on the 1st page of Google search results.

By “actually good” I mean the best article that exists on the given subject.

For example, when compiling my free library of 95 marketing audit questions, I didn’t leave it at 15. I went all the way, creating the most extensive resource on the subject.

It’s the #1 search result for the Google query of “marketing audit questions.” And the first resource quoted in the AI summary.

(I tested in an incognito window to remove search bias. Do it whenever checking your own keyword rankings.)

Quality work pays off.

One thing that’s changed between 2015 and 2026 is the level of quality people expect from brands.

Nobody needs more low-quality slop. There’s already too much in the world.

On the other hand, it’s so easy to feel like you have to do something. Because, like other human beings, you encounter 100x more cool stuff daily than you used to five years ago.

Don’t fall into the good marketing anxiety trap.

Instead of despairing “there’s so much good stuff out there, how can I even compete?” take a step back from the noise.

Zone out. Book a 4-hour slot to think. And come up w/ something that’s valuable to your ICP that you can deliver.

That something probably isn’t something you can create in 10 minutes w/ an AI tool. If it is, it already exists.

It’s the slow, focused, demanding work that translates into high-quality marketing assets and campaigns.

I’m not saying “original” on purpose. I don’t believe that in 2026, originality matters as much as quality and craft.

Spend more time on creating quality marketing assets (articles, landing pages, ad creatives, PR stunts, newsletters, etc.) rather than launching semi-good ones.

Read more: Dismantling the AI Marketing Mammoth

7. Multiply your marketing budget 5-10x

Hot take, I know.

Isn’t an early-stage startup supposed to be… FRUGAL?

Well, yeah.

But the thing it needs to be frugal about is not money. It’s time.

Each month that your company fails to grow exponentially, you’re burning your funding on team salaries, office rent, software licenses, etc.

I’ve seen so many startups die slowly while playing it safe.

And so have you.

The whole point of having an investment (vs bootstrapping) is to grow fast.

Early-stage companies are like ice cream. : p

You either go all in or watch it melt through your fingers and stain the floor (your reputation).

Would you rather work w/ a second-time founder (or founding marketer) who…

a) Made bold early bets which didn’t work out, and failed in 12-24 months.

b) Kept the company barely functioning for 10 years, then folded.

I know which one I’d prefer.

A lot of the time, the best moat for tech companies is being the first to take the market.

Chances are that you’re underspending on marketing and expansion.

Here’s how I think about early-stage growth investment:

1. Spend cautiously until you’ve found your product market fit, positive marketing ROAS, and functioning growth loops.
2. Once you’re growing organically (word of mouth, referrals = people love your product), 5-10x your marketing budget and expand to new markets fast.

For example, here’s Klarna’s expansion timeline.

Note when profitability arrives. Source

8. Build growth loops. 1 user » 1.5-2.5 users

All successful tech companies have a growth loop built into their product.

A growth loop means that every new user you bring into your product will invite others.

It also means that if you spend €50 to bring in a new active user via paid ads, the CAC (customer acquisition cost) gets diluted once they bring other people into your product.

The most obvious growth loop is referrals. But there are many more.

Here’s an excellent article by Maja Voje on growth loops, including many examples.

9. Run 2 experiments/month, minimum

The best way to find things that work in the early stage is to experiment.

This applies to both marketing and product bets.

Rule #1 of experimentation: do it regularly and consistently.

In the past months, working on Roleo’s marketing and growth, I’ve run at least one Meta ads experiment every week.

There are weeks when the new ad creatives perform worse than the previous ones.

And then there are weeks when I discover a new creative that brings 2x as many new users at a 50% lower CAC.

In just three months, I tested over fifty different Meta ad designs.

Rule #2 of experimentation: prioritise the “highs.”

Often, low-effort ideas get prioritised over high-effort and high-impact.

Stay alert to this trap.

Also, give priority to high-confidence ideas.

You have a solid understanding of your ICPs and their pain points. Trust your gut feeling. When in doubt, validate any new idea by talking to your users (and non-users).

My take on user interviews:

You want to talk to people who use and love your product.

But more importantly, you should talk to your ICPs who are not using your product to understand what you need to build and improve.

10. Don’t worry about monetisation (just yet)

Another controversial view, I’m aware.

“If people aren’t willing to pay for our product, there’s no product-market fit,” you might argue.

Yes, I agree to some extent.

But I’ve seen too many early-stage startups limit their early-stage growth with a bad monetisation model.

By “bad” I mean a pricing model that stops new customers from trying the product and stalls both supply and demand.

In the early stage, use your funding to grow, not to make back 0.1% of your potential future earnings.

In order to monetise a market, you first need to take it.

For example, when entering a new market, Bolt burned millions on rider discounts and driver bonuses before reversing the profitability chart.

If you think about fast-growth AI companies in 2026, they subsidise computing power, tokens, and software features.

Or they give consumers free agentic products that, in the background, cost them millions of €$£ in computing bills.

These companies will become profitable in 2 or 5 or 10 years.

But first, they focus on fast growth and taking the market. To build the moat that makes it nearly impossible for any new players to enter.

Next steps

Scroll back to the numbered list of 10 early-stage company marketing rules.

Take 10 minutes to reflect on them.

1. Which ones do you already check?
2. Are there any that might help you grow faster?
3. Do you have the right team to implement them?

If you feel like talking to a marketing and growth expert, I’m open to 1-2 new consulting projects. Read more here.

The post 10 Rules of Early-stage Brand, Marketing, Growth appeared first on Marketing Fix blog.

If you’re running paid ads, your creatives are the number one thing that decides your success. (By success, I mean ROAS and revenue, not impressions and clicks.)

Number two is something you’ve barely touched since the last rebrand: your website header.

You get the click. Fine.

But what’s the website conversion into leads and paying customers?

Quick maths: if you spend €10,000/month on paid ads and your signup CAC is €28, improving your website conversion rate by 20% buys you 71 extra signups a month.

That’s €24,000 a year in signups you didn’t have to pay for. Or a 20% bump in new users for the same ad budget.

Read more: 95 Marketing Audit Questions: Free Checklist

But here’s where most marketers get it wrong.

They redesign the entire website to improve the conversion rate.

Nothing below the fold matters. Unless your header gives people a reason to scroll.

Visitors judge your website in 50 milliseconds.

That’s 2.5x faster than a blink of an eye.

It is your website hero that decides whether people will sign up and buy.

In the previous issue of Marketing Fix, I analysed the hero copy of 15 category-defining AI products.

I promised the design half next, so here it is.

Light vs. dark, product UI vs. illustration, and the mystery of the disappearing stock photo. And because looking at pretty websites fixes nothing, each finding comes as an actionable test you can run on your own header this week.

So that your website header can digivolve from Patamon to Angemon.

Six AI-era website header design trends

The 15 AI brands I analysed employ some of the best design and marketing minds money can hire. Which makes their headers less “inspiration” and more free R&D.

Here’s a quick overview of six key trends in AI brands’ website headers.

1. Bin the 50/50 layout. Choose a single focus point.
2. Ditch the white default. Pick your own mood.
3. Forget Inter & Helvetica. Go for a human serif.
4. Stop asking for the click. Let visitors try the product.
5. Cut the stock photos. Go bare or baroque.
6. Change the hero weekly. Keep the logo bar sacred.

Each is worth a copy-and-run test.

Let’s take a look at what each of these means in practice, and how you can turn them into A/B tests for your own website.

1. Single focus point » Headline 1

Examples: Wispr Flow, Dovetail, Clay

Back in 2016, website headers balanced headline and image equally.

In 2026, all good marketers know that 80% of visitors are on their smartphones. Just check your paid ads traffic and placements.

This means that you’ll have to choose one thing to show first: image or message.

Nearly all (13 out of 15) leading AI brand websites have their Headline 1 blown up to poster size.

But some have also completely omitted the illustration. Unthinkable in 2016!

Wispr Flow states their USP with only a whisper of decoration around it.

Dovetail makes the headline physical with a 3D finger.

Clay runs a two-line statement over quiet toys-on-white.

How to implement this on your own website:

Promote your headline, demote everything else. Try removing all illustrations from your header.

Make your headline follow one of these proven angles:

• Promise an irresistible outcome: “Get better at being healthy, every year” (Superpower)
• Build in a tension: “Build with facts, not vibes” (Dovetail)
• Keep it readable in one breath (5-6 words): “Meet the night shift” (Notion)

Read more: Copywriting for Facebook and Social Media – How to Make Sentences Make Sense

2. White background » Hued or dark

Examples: Notion, Granola, Superhuman

A white background can look clean, trustworthy, and Apple-adjacent. For many people, it also looks half-baked and pre-seed.

Another trend past its shelf life is the gradient. Only two of the 15 still pull it off: Lovable and Superhuman.

Half of the 15 analysed brands turned the lights off completely: dark heroes from Superpower, Dovetail, Notion, Cursor, Superhuman, and Sierra.

The light half didn’t always keep white either. They swapped it for cream and paper tones.

Notion paints its “Meet the night shift” hero in actual night-shift navy.

Granola sets its AI notepad on a soft cream that reads as paper.

Superhuman’s purple is the bolder of the two surviving gradients.

How to implement this on your own website:

Pick a background that matches your ICP’s mood. Tranquil vs. techy vs. experimental.

• Dark = technical, premium, serious (works for dev tools and pro software)
• Cream and paper = calm, human, editorial (works for anything claiming to simplify work or life)
• Gradient = statement. Only if you commit like Lovable’s pink-blue.

Whatever you pick, ensure high text-background contrast first. Dark heroes win design awards and lose conversion tests.

3. Sans » Serif fonts

Examples: Wispr Flow, Ada

I think the sans » serif font change is the best recent UI hack I’ve seen. It immediately creates a classy and elegant feel.

What’s even better: It’s a new trend that most SaaS brands have yet to catch up with. Change now and be among the avant-garde.

Sans serif fonts (Inter, Helvetica, etc.) are safe and neutral. They’re also invisible and identical to everyone.

The taste-signalling AI brands break rank in two directions.

Direction one: serifs. VoiceFlow goes full editorial, a headline set like a magazine cover. It is paired with a simple sans font in Headline 2.

Direction two: keep your sans font, but drop the weight.

The thin sans is the safe update that you can test without messing too much with your CVI.

Ada’s headline uses a thin sans font which creates a more premium feel.

How to implement this on your own website:

Switch your Headline 1 and Headline 2 fonts. If you use a WebFlow or WordPress template, you can easily change your system fonts.

Five free and classy serif fonts to test:

• Instrument Serif: the current AI-brand favourite
• Fraunces: a quirky old-style serif font
• Newsreader: designed for digital editorial, Conde Nast and New Yorker style
• DM Serif Display: glossy fashion magazine vibes
• EB Garamond: more classic literary publisher font

Unique paid serif fonts: Tiempos Headline (Klim), Canela (Commercial Type), Reckless (Displaay), Editorial New (Pangram Pangram), Ogg (Sharp Type)

Digimon break

4. Show don’t tell » Give don’t show

Examples: Replit, Lovable

“Show, don’t tell” used to be the golden rule of header design: feature a product screenshot and let it speak for you.

The leading AI brands turned the tables. They no longer show but let you test the product before signup.

The header no longer displays the product. It contains it. You can type right into the prompt box, see a quick result, and be transferred into the signup flow.

Replit asks “What will you build?” and hands you a prompt box to answer in.

Lovable goes further and skips the button entirely. The prompt box is the CTA.

Remember what I found in the website header copywriting analysis (previous Marketing Fix newsletter): about 90% of your visitors come to website with the conversion decision already made elsewhere.

So your hero’s job isn’t to persuade, but to remove the last step between the visitor and the product.

How to implement this on your own website:

Productise a key feature of your product that visitors can use without signing up. Put it in the hero.

A prompt box, a calculator, a question with 2-3 answer options.

There’s just one condition: the first interaction must deliver value in seconds. A slow or disappointing demo is worse than a CTA button.

5. Imagery » None or all in

Examples: Sierra, Cofounder, Mistral

I’d love to make the Patamon-Angemon comparison here. But it wouldn’t be quite valid.

Angemon certainly exemplifies the all-bells-and-whistles version of a header illustration. But there’s no room for a Patamon: the modest middle ground is gone. It’s either Angemon or empty background.

Hero imagery in 2026 comes in exactly two flavours: none at all, or art-directed by skilled designers.

Zero of the 15 analysed brands use stock photos. Not a single corporate princess smiling into the camera.

Sierra runs a muted film-still of a real person on the phone. It looks like an Antonioni frame, not a landing page.

Cofounder commissioned a pixel-art landscape, a laptop resting in a storybook forest. Their entire branding is very difficult and expensive to copy.

Mistral went the opposite way: no imagery at all, just massive type and a brutalist pixel pattern.

How to implement this on your own website:

Run the swap test on your hero image: if it could appear on a competitor’s site without anyone noticing, change it.

Two directions to explore:

• All in: real photography with actual art direction, or illustration with an artist’s fingerprint. Commission it instead of licencing.
• None: bold typography on a bare background. Free, and yet stronger than a generic illustration.

6. Social proof » The sacred logo bar

Examples: Replit, Notion, Clay, Intercom

A lot above the fold has rotated over the past decade. Layouts, colours, fonts, CTAs…

One element didn’t move: the logo bar.

However, it is worth noting that the logo bar is a quintessential B2B move. A B2B buyer needs to justify the purchase to their boss. A consumer only needs to justify it to themselves.

In B2C, brands showcase the number of active users or trust site ratings.

Out of the analysed brands, Clay and Intercom do it the best.

Clay stacks the densest bar of the set under a “trusted by 350,000+ GTM teams” line. And note the little “Case Study” banners next to each!

Intercom takes the logo bar to its extreme. Or shall we say “the logo block?”

While not in the header, there’s an entire section of nothing but customer logos right under it on Intercom’s website. Twenty-four of them, Amazon to Anthropic to A24, arranged like a wall of honour.

How to implement this on your own website:

Selling to B2B teams? Keep the logo bar inside or directly under the hero.

• Use a mix of universally recognisable logos + trendy industry darlings
• Six no-name logos are worse than none. If your logos aren’t recognisable, skip them.
• Once your customer list gets long enough, do what Intercom does: give it its own section.

Bonus

The coolest website I saw when researching this article: Contra Labs

Need help with marketing? I am open for 2-3 new projects starting in September 2026. Read about collaboration options here.

Further reading recommendations:

• 215+ Best Facebook Ad Examples (NEW 2026 Update)
• Dismantling the AI Marketing Mammoth

The post 6x A/B Tests to Digivolve Your Web Header into 2026 appeared first on Marketing Fix blog.

I put off starting this article on marketing AI armageddon for over a week.

The mental overload from infinite AI use cases is real.

To the point that, finally, to give this sense of chaos a tangible image, my brain time-travelled 2 million years back to Pleistocene.

The image that arose in my head at 9pm on a Wednesday evening was of a woolly mammoth.

A dead woolly mammoth, to be exact.

(Certainly not what ChatGPT would suggest. All for the better, perhaps…)

So here we are, in the early Pleistocene.

The planet is much warmer and wet. All across African savannahs, herds of proboscideans (mammoth ancestors the size of small trucks) are crunching on shrubs and twigs.

Then, sadly, one of them is taken down by an ancient pathogen.

There it is, laying in the tall grass, waiting to be eaten by the first Homo habilis to come upon a dead mammoth.

Imagine a hairy human ancestor—let’s call him Charlie.

Out on his daily hunt, Charlie finds the brown mountain of meat. He doesn’t know it’s a miniature mammoth. What he does know is that his fifteen children are hungry, and animal meat very yummy.

Now, put yourself in the shoes (pardon, an anachronistic pun) of Charlie.

You’re a tiny human standing beside a huge mammoth cadaver, unsure what to do about it.

At first, you walk a few circles around the animal, contemplating not whether, but how, to break it apart. You shrug, then shiver at the thought of having to tear the whole thing to pieces and carry it home. It would take you several days, 100 kilometres back-and-forth. You’d rather leave it there, go home to a cave and bring it up again.

Soon, it will all come to seem like a distant bad dream.

The AI marketing mammoth

The mammoth is a fitting metaphor to describe how most marketers feel about AI.

It’s something supposedly good. But it’s also horribly big. Too big to make heads or tails of it.

And yet, you read another LinkedIn post and decide to check out Claude Code. First, you shrug. Then, you shiver. And because it’s a capitalist tech-driven world, you take out your stone dagger (trackpad) and cut (tap) into the pelt (signup button).

Yuck.

This was my first thought, too, when downloading Claude Desktop 6 weeks ago.

Then, I took some days to read my favourite marketing newsletters’ recent archives. When I returned to the real world, my eyes were sore and my head haloed with an artificial 3D ring.

The AI overwhelm is real

The key reason for marketers being stressed out over AI is that we look at it as one huge beast.

While, in fact, it’s an entire marketing team.

Just like a mammoth has legs, trunk, and belly, your marketing team is made up of several specialists.

But read five posts on your LinkedIn feed, and your mind reels. AI-led sales outreach, blog post generation, ASO optimisation, marketing asset design, etc. etc. etc. And you, feeling like I need to do it all NOW.

Because only a loser couldn’t implement 10 commandments by 10 diverse marketing experts in one week. Because only the bad marketers, soon to be replaced by AI, would fail to set up 100 new Claude Code skills and foundations and grow their company’s blog traffic + inbound leads 700% MoM in three months.

Right?

Ummm… There used to be LinkedIn posts about CMOs explaining to CEOs why this can’t be done.

I want to return to that pre-AI world.

But of course, I can’t.

To stay competitive as a marketer in 2026, you have to adopt AI to some extent.

Deconstructing the AI marketing mammoth

The most helpful thing for me, when returning to the marketing realm after 8 months of writing my sci-fi novel, was to deconstruct the AI machine.

It’s really not that different from joining a new company as marketing lead. Which is exactly what happened as I joined Roleo as their part-time founding CMO.

If you’re a full-stack marketing lead, you want to do (read: rescue) everything at once. There are obvious fires to put out. Meanwhile, you’re supposed to build a long-term marketing strategy, set up KPI tracking, launch paid advertising, and set up social media accounts. Not to speak of product launch support and website revamp.

It’s the same way with AI.

The abundance of AI use cases in marketing leads to decision fatigue and paralysis.

According to thousands of LinkedIn posts by the “experts” who use ChatGPT to scrape and rephrase their “expertise” into “comment for skills” posts, you should use AI for everything.

• Competitive research
• Daily & monthly planning
• Paid ads design & optimisation
• Content marketing & ASO
• Website & assets design
• Outbound sales outreach
• Social media growth
• Media outreach & PR stunts

The advanced gurus even suggest that you to build your AI second brain.

Sorry, Kieran. While I consider you one of the best marketing AI experts, I choose to keep my single brain and plan my own life.

The best way to overcome the sense of helplessness is to break the “AI in marketing” project into small, digestible pieces.

Marketers who stress about AI are looking at it as a single project. The solution is to break it apart and tackle it project by project.

Instead of saying: “I need an AI control centre for marketing.”

You could say: “I’d like to set up Claude Cowork to help me with competitor research and blog article writing.”

What changes is the project’s magnitude. By verbalising the exact outcome, you give yourself the agency to finish it.

1. Identify 2-3 marketing AI use cases that would benefit you most (time savings or more quality output).
2. Create a timeline for building out a Claude Cowork (foundation + skills) project for each.
3. Take 3-4 weeks to build the Claude project, test it, teach it, and start benefitting from it.

Let the final point settle in.

Setting up Claude Cowork for high-quality output takes time. It can’t be copy-pasted from a LinkedIn post comment.

Which AI marketing use cases should you explore first?

It depends on your role in the company, and how advanced your marketing game already is.

Further, there are still some use cases where AI simply can’t replace human intelligence, creativity, and skills.

Like designing ad creatives or writing opinion essays. I didn’t use any AI to write this newsletter, only for spell-check later.

The image below shows how GTM teams use Claude Code. (GTM = product marketing, sales, growth, lead gen.)

Take 30 seconds to consider where AI is most useful for you. (Remember: you are one person, not a team of twenty.)

As a full-stack marketer working with early-stage companies, my needs are quite different from the above chart. I don’t work with sales; I have to deliver immediate growth.

If you’re a mid-level marketer in a large team, specialised in 1-2 things, let me tell you this: Big companies hire automation experts to set up complex AI systems, including for marketing tasks. These people are paid €250k/year plus.

If you’re in a team of 5+ people, it should be your CMO, not you, who sets up Claude Cowork for the marketing team. And ensures it’s aligned with the rest of the company.

How I’ve been using Claude this far

Here are the primary tasks I’ve used Claude for over the past six weeks, and where I found it helpful vs. adding to the chaos.

1. Competitive research: 8/10

Claude saved me 80% time by collecting all information in a spreadsheet. I still had to specify the competitors to check, collect relevant screenshots, review, analyse, and summarise.

2. Product marketing copy: 6/10

This use case only became useful after I set up a Claude Cowork project with detailed foundation files for brand voice, product features, competitors, and audience. It took me 3 working days and was totally worth it. I use it for drafting website and product launch copy, then rewrite everything in the end. It’s great for creating a logical structure and covering all important points. Also, for brainstorming 50 different headlines with a slightly different angle and wording.

3. Social media ideas & copy: 5/10

Horrible for original ideas. But once you set it up as Claude Cowork project, it can help with the first draft. Create brand voice guidelines, and provide detailed, original input. (No dropping in 50 LinkedIn posts by other people and asking the algos to copy them. In gastronomy, you can turn stale bread into delicious pudding; it doesn’t work in marketing.) In the end, I always rewrite the whole draft and use Claude for review.

4. Meta ads copy: 7/10

Actually pretty good, once you’ve set up Claude Cowork (see point 2).

5. Meta ads design: 1/10

A complete waste of time. Don’t believe anyone who tells you otherwise. Even the AI-design oriented tools like Figma, Adobe, Claude Design can’t properly render logos and align text. No shortcuts: learn Figma or hire someone.

6. Ideation & research: 5/10

I tried asking Claude for fun Latitude59 tech conference marketing stunts. It suggested some ok stuff. But ok is not good enough. In the end, it took me a 2h walk around East London to come up with the actual idea.

7. Charts & graphs design 8/10

I’m giving it a high rating because creating the visual below took me 10 minutes with Claude Design, from project setup to download. Caveat: I had to prepare a Figma file with brand assets and chart examples, which took me 2 hours. Plus you’ll need a CVI. Even so, huge time savings ahead.

While many pros recommend using Claude Code, you can do most marketing work with Claude Cowork. It’s got chat-based interface instead of Terminal.

“Just three months after launch, Cowork (32%) has already surpassed Claude Code (31%) as the primary Claude product among GTM operators we surveyed,” Maja Voje and Kyle Poyar reported in April 2026.

The survey of 200 GTM specialists confirmed that many prefer Cowork, especially for content creation, product and growth marketing.

Where I wouldn’t use AI as a marketer (and a human being)

Roughly 75% of the AI use cases the LinkedIn experts hype, I’d never use myself.

They either take more time than they save, or produce low-quality results.

1. Reporting & ad account optimisation: I prefer to do it manually every week, and process the information with my own brain.

2. Website & ad design: It’s just not working yet. I made some graphics with Claude Design for this newsletter. Not sure I ended up saving time.

Meanwhile, I was working on rebranding Marketing Fix this week, and did everything manually on Figma. Claude was helpful for researching premium typefaces. I then browsed are.na for hours to research colour swatches, editorial style, and typography. Finally, I designed everything manually on Figma.

3. Social media & newsletter writing: I’m a writer, after all. And I find something deeply degrading about serving other human beings “content” written by a machine. Just as I wouldn’t serve my friends Snickers and McDonald’s fries.

4. Human-to-human communication: I understand why sales teams contacting 100s of people each week automate the process. You can do it with Apollo, Clay, etc. But as I only send 5-10 work-related texts per week, I prefer to write them myself.

The stuff you don’t need AT ALL

I’ll end my rant-slash-therapy-session by repeating my unswayable belief:

There are many overcomplicated marketing AI use cases nobody actually needs.

Here’s an example of the type of LinkedIn post we’d all be better off without.

What it does is expand a single Claude Cowork use case into 20 “agents.”

Most of these are useless to your decision-making. They only add noise and extra work.

And extra anxiety.

Instead of creating 20 AI agents, you could simply set up a Claude Cowork project with a solid foundation and 5-6 skills for ideation and content creation. It writes all the assets in one task, instead of being uselessly broken down into 10 different details. Plus you might set up some bot for reaching out to collaborators and answering comments, if the volumes are high.

The branding, reporting, and designs you still have to do manually. That is, if you want them to be any good.

How to get started?

You probably already have.

It’s me who returned to marketing after a hiatus, and had to begin learning from scratch.

But in case you want a reset, or are still in the overwhelm phase, I recommend that you start following 4-5 people who are real experts on the subject.

Here are my go-to marketing newsletters on AI:

• Maja Voje: GTM Strategist
• Kieran Flanagan: Marketing AI in Action
• Ruben Hassid: How to AI

I will also be sharing detailed breakdowns of how I use AI for marketing tasks in Marketing Fix blog and Substack.

Help to keep me motivated by inviting other marketers and founders. Share Marketing Fix.

Coding skills vs. taste

There’s a new discourse about taste being the AI era’s most valuable skill.

I agree.

When anyone can generate marketing text and visuals in a single prompt, curation and authentic ideas become key differentiations.

As a marketer, you should be well aware that as long as your product is alright, original branding is what makes it stand out.

What can’t be prompted is something that didn’t exist before you created it.

“Writing, good writing, will therefore always be a place where something unknown, something which didn’t exist before, is given existence,” the Nobel Prize-winning Norwegian author Jon Fosse wrote.

Instead of sweating about learning to code, become genuinely curious about art, dance, books, film—whatever you fancy.

Spend time away from your screen, in the real world. Because the people you’re marketing to, god bless, are still not running on AI brains.

Here’s a list of the best books I read a few years ago. Perhaps you’ll find something to get you started.

Further reading recommendations:

• Marketing Audit: Free Checklist of 95 Questions
• The Marketing Tools I Use Every Single Week
  

The post Dismantling the AI Marketing Mammoth appeared first on Marketing Fix blog.

In this marketing audit guide:

• Explanation of what is a marketing audit
• List of marketing audit chapters
• Guide on how to conduct your own
• Thoughts on using AI to save time
• Free checklist of 95 marketing audit questions

What is a marketing audit?

After working on 45+ marketing audits, each of which takes 20-40 hours, I’ve spent ca 1,350 hours of my waking life (that’s about 84 days!) switching between tabs and docs.

How did I end up writing the audits? And why?

It’s rare for agencies or consultants to offer marketing audits as a standalone service. They’re usually done in-house, by the CMO. Or by an external auditing agency as part of a bigger project.

And yet, the need for an audit of a company’s marketing activities arose every time I started working for a new brand.

A 360-degree marketing audit is the fastest way to:

1. Get an exhaustive overview of what’s worked / not worked.
2. Understand each marketing channel’s state and ROI.
3. Research competing brands’ USPs and tactics.
4. Map new ideas and opportunities for growth.
5. Align company-wide goals with those of marketing.
6. Get a prioritised roadmap for the next 6 months.

Think of a marketing audit as a complete check-up of your marketing strategy.

Audits are done 1-2 times per year, and give you a deep dive into your marketing efforts to see what’s working and what’s not, and what could be optimised for better results.

You end up with a clear roadmap for the next 6-12 months.

What does a marketing audit cover?

When conducting marketing audits for my clients, I usually spend 20+ hours collecting, analysing, and formatting the information.

The resulting Google Docs file is about 60 pages long (including screenshots).

That’s a lot of hours and pages…

But if you think about it, there are also many different aspects to marketing. A well-researched and actionable marketing audit covers every aspect of your marketing strategy, from acquisition to engagement to retention.

The best way to do a marketing audit is by taking the 360-degree approach.

You should cover all the key aspects of your growth and marketing strategy, from planning and reporting to detailed per-channel analysis.

Eight key chapters of a marketing audit:

1. Results & Reporting
2. Brand & Value Proposition
3. Website/App & Acquisition Flow
4. Customer Acquisition
   1. Growth loops
   2. Paid ads
5. Social Media Marketing
6. Content Marketing & SEO
7. Email Marketing & Automation
8. Summary & Next 12 Months’ Plan

How to get started with a marketing audit?

1. Define your marketing audit goals.
2. Set up a Google Doc with all chapters.
3. Block 2-4h every day to complete the audit in 1-2 weeks.

1️⃣ Start by defining what you want to get out of your audit.

• Is your goal to improve ROI or find new ways to scale?
• Are you looking to identify weak points in your strategy?
• Just checking if your marketing strategy aligns with the CEO’s view?

Be clear about what the final audit result should look like before you start.

2️⃣ Set up a Google Doc with all chapters.

The hardest part is to start the project. Just do it.

I like writing marketing audits in Google Docs, as they’re great for formatting, including screenshots, and team comments.

Alternatively, you could use Notion or a Miro board.

3️⃣ Block 2-4 hours of time daily.

Writing a marketing audit is not a multitasking side task. Your brain needs to go into deep-focus mode where it can take in lots of information, analyse it, make connections, and come up with strategic takeaways.

I usually aim to write a full chapter in one sitting. It ends up saving a lot of time, because you don’t have to reopen all the tabs, get back into the mindset, etc.

It’s best to work on your marketing audit in the morning, when your mind’s not yet cluttered with Slack threads and meetings.

Can you use AI for auditing?

There is one part of the marketing audit where AI tools like Claude Cowork can save you time.

That’s competitive research.

I like to create a list of 10-15 competitors, and ask Claude to scrape their website and socials, then create a spreadsheet with relevant URLs, positioning and value props.

But even then, I’ll manually click each of the URLs and analyse their websites and social posts to know what’s actually there. I also collect screenshots of good examples (website blocks, USP wordings, paid ad creatives) and add them to Google Docs with my own commentary and takeaways.

As to the rest of your audit, you’ll only waste time trying to cheat with AI.

The whole point of the marketing audit is to view, analyse, and process everything with your own wise human brain.

And, obviously, you’re the only person who can come up with meaningful takeaways and next steps.

Use AI cautiously. Otherwise, you’ll end up with lots of gibberish that does not lead to any improvements or change.

95 marketing audit questions: checklist

Below, you will find five marketing audit questions for each chapter. That’s a total of 40 questions. How about another 55 to write a substantial, detailed overview?

Access the Notion page with the full checklist by subscribing to the Marketing Fix newsletter. Get the Notion Library of 95 Marketing Audit Questions.

You will find the link to Notion in your Welcome email.

Once in, you can copy the library to your account for tracking your progress. Tap “Duplicate” icon in the top-right corner.

Chapter 1: Reporting & Results

1. Have you got an up-to-date weekly/monthly KPI sheet for marketing ROI tracking?
2. Is your current marketing reporting sufficient and gives a clear overview of per-channel ROI?
3. Is there a clear marketing plan & budget for the next 6/12 months?
4. If working with agencies: Is there transparent monthly reporting on KPIs like Cost-Per-Lead and ROI?
5. Can you track the results & ROI of every marketing channel you spend on?

Chapter 2: Brand & Value Proposition

1. Who is your ICP – ideal customer profile? Is there a clear understanding about it across the organisation?
2. Are your brand USPs strong enough to convert people to buyers?
3. What is your #1 touchpoint where future customers form an opinion of your brand?
4. Does your brand leave a high-quality and trustworthy first impression?
5. Does the #1 touchpoint clearly (and immediately) communicate your product and its 1-2 top USPs?

Chapter 3: Website/App & Acquisition Flow

1. Does your website leave a high-quality and trustworthy first impression?
2. Does the #1 touchpoint clearly (and immediately) communicate your product and its 1-2 top USPs?
3. Is there a clear CTA (in website header) with the next step you want the visitor to take?
4. Do you use numbers and client logos to communicate your USP + social proof on your Home page?
5. Are your product(s) and features/benefits well visualised & communicated on the Home page?

Chapter 4: Customer Acquisition

1. Do you have a clear documentation of all paid and non-paid marketing channels with results and ROI?
2. What are your TOP 2-3 acquisition channels that drive sales and revenue?
3. Have you done any offline advertising campaigns in the past 12 months? Describe results.
4. Are there any paid channels with low performance & negative ROAS?
5. Are there any channels underperforming or delivering diminishing returns?

Chapter 5: Social Media Marketing

1. What are your brand’s active social media marketing channels?
2. Are all of your social media accounts active and getting regular engagement?
3. Are your social media profiles consistent in branding (logos, banners) AND messaging (tone of voice)?
4. Is your social media content having high engagement (likes, comments, shares, DMs)?
5. Do you have a social media strategy & plan laid out for 2+ weeks in advance?

Chapter 6: Content Marketing & SEO

1. Is organic content marketing an active customer acquisition source for your brand?
2. How are you driving traffic to your organic marketing channels? Does your audience engage with it?
3. How has ASO (Agentic Search Optimisation) affected your website traffic?
4. How visible are you in ASO results compared to competitors?
5. Is your marketing content relevant and interesting to the ICP?

Chapter 7: Email Marketing & Automation

1. Is automated email marketing part of your strategy? Have you mapped it out?
2. Are your automation workflows set up for key customer touchpoints (welcome emails, abandoned cart reminders, re-engagement campaigns)?
3. Do you have an email automation strategy to convert cold leads into customers?
4. Are you leveraging behavioural triggers (downloads, product actions, purchase history) for personalised automation?
5. How clean is your email list? Are inactive or unengaged subscribers being managed or removed?

Chapter 8: Summary & Next 12 Months’ Plan

1. Based on the audit & competitor research, how would you evaluate your current marketing strategy and results?
2. What are the weakest links in your current marketing strategy that lower your conversion rates?
3. What are the TOP 3-5 marketing activities/channels that deliver results?
4. What are the marketing activities with no ROI that you should stop spending resources on?
5. If you had to 2x your customer acquisition in the next 6 months, where would you focus?

Final recommendation

Summer is one of the best times for conducting a marketing audit.

Half the team’s off, and so are your customers.

Slow office days mean lower distraction. And this is just what’s required for a good, productive writing day.

Worried about not having enough experience?

That’s just another excuse. As with many things in life, Google is your best friend whenever in doubt.

Give it a go!

Not sure you have enough experience–or time–to write your own audit? You can hire me to do it for you. Read more here.

Further reading recommendations:

• 30min DYI Facebook Ad Account Audit
• 25+ Best Marketing Newsletters in 2025 – Read by TOP 5% Marketers

The post 95 Marketing Audit Questions: Free Checklist appeared first on Marketing Fix blog.

The worthwhile ones do more than summarise yesterday’s LinkedIn posts. They bring you an original idea, a useful framework, a well-researched example, or a tactic you can apply to real work.

This is my curated list of the best marketing newsletters to read in 2026. It covers growth, paid advertising, social media, go-to-market strategy, content, buyer psychology, AI, and newsletter growth.

There is no single “best” newsletter for every marketer. The right choice depends on what you are trying to get better at. If you only want the short version, start with the quick picks below.

How I selected these marketing newsletters

I work in growth and paid advertising and have held growth roles across 50+ technology companies in Europe, the UK, and the US. I read marketing newsletters to find ideas I can use—not to collect more unread email.

For this guide, I looked for newsletters that meet most of these criteria:

• Originality: The writer adds a point of view, research, examples, or firsthand experience rather than repackaging common advice.
• Practical value: A reader can apply the ideas to strategy, creative, campaigns, content, or team decisions.
• Subject expertise: The creator has credible experience in the topic they cover.
• Peer readership: I also checked which newsletters respected creators read themselves. This is not a formal endorsement, but it is a useful quality signal: for example, Kyle Poyar reads Maja Voje’s work, and Maja reads Karola Karlson’s.
• Consistency: The newsletter is active enough to become a reliable reading habit.
• Editorial quality: The writing is clear, specific, and worth opening.
• A defined audience: The newsletter knows who it is for and what problem it solves.

Subscriber numbers and publishing schedules change, so treat them as snapshots rather than permanent facts. The list was checked in August 2026.

Best marketing newsletters: quick picks by use case

• Newsletter and audience growth: Growth in Reverse
• Creator businesses: Creator Science
• Practical growth and paid social: Marketing Fix by Karola Karlson
• Newsletter monetisation: Newsletter Operator
• Practical AI workflows: Behind the Craft
• Go-to-market strategy: GTM Strategist
• Product-led and B2B growth: Growth Unhinged
• Product and startup operators: Lenny’s Newsletter
• Social media strategy: Link in Bio
• Paid social and Meta ads: The Performers
• Buyer psychology: Why We Buy
• AI for marketing leaders: The AI Marketing Generalist

Best marketing newsletters at a glance

The order below is editorial, not an objective universal ranking. I have grouped newsletters by where they are most useful.

Best newsletters for newsletter and creator growth

1. Growth in Reverse by Chenell Basilio

Best for: Newsletter operators, creators, and marketers building an owned audience
Frequency: Weekly
Format: Free newsletter

Growth in Reverse is one of the most useful newsletters about newsletter growth because Chenell Basilio does the research most writers skip.

Each edition reverse-engineers how a creator grew an audience: where the first subscribers came from, which lead magnets worked, how referrals were designed, and what caused growth to accelerate or stall. The result feels less like generic creator advice and more like an annotated case study.

The lessons also travel well beyond newsletters. Product and growth teams can borrow the same ideas for onboarding, referrals, segmentation, and community-led acquisition.

Start here: 7 Newsletter Growth Strategies From Studying Top Creators.

Not ideal for: Readers looking for broad marketing news or quick daily updates.

2. Creator Science by Jay Clouse

Best for: Creators and solopreneurs building content-led businesses
Frequency: Weekly
Format: Free newsletter with paid products and community

Creator Science treats creator growth as a discipline rather than a collection of hacks. Jay Clouse shares experiments, observations, and business decisions with unusual transparency.

Expect thoughtful writing on content strategy, memberships, audience trust, monetisation, and the role of AI in creative work. Jay is especially good at exploring the trade-offs behind a decision: what sounds attractive, what the data showed, and what changed after the experiment.

It is a strong choice if you want to build a durable creator business without pretending that every post, product, or launch will work.

Start here: The Barbell Content Strategy.

Not ideal for: In-house marketers who only want campaign tactics.

3. Marketing Fix by Karola Karlson

Editor’s pick for: Experienced in-house marketers and startup founders who want practical growth and paid-social guidance from an active practitioner
Frequency: Bi-weekly
Format: Free newsletter on Substack

Marketing Fix by Karola Karlson focuses on the parts of startup marketing that are not working—and what to do about them.

Issues cover topics such as diagnosing a Meta ad account that has stopped scaling, improving a landing page, building a growth strategy, evaluating creative, and using AI without replacing judgement. The advice draws on Karola’s 12 years in growth roles and work across 50+ technology companies in Europe, the UK, and the US.

The tone is practitioner-to-practitioner: direct, specific, and willing to say when a popular tactic is overhyped. Each edition also includes cultural recommendations intended to help marketers develop stronger taste alongside technical skill.

Representative issues: 95 Marketing Audit Questions and Meta Ad Examples.

Honest limitation: Marketing Fix is bi-weekly and selective, so it is not the right source for daily platform news or exhaustive coverage of every marketing channel.

4. Newsletter Operator by Matt McGarry

Best for: Founders and creators treating newsletters as media businesses
Frequency: Weekly
Format: Free newsletter

Newsletter Operator goes deep on the mechanics of growing and monetising an email audience.

Matt McGarry writes about paid subscriber acquisition, list quality, deliverability, engagement, sponsorships, and newsletter economics. His perspective is grounded in hands-on work growing large newsletters rather than theory alone.

The best issues connect individual tactics to the underlying business model. You learn not only how to acquire a subscriber, but when that acquisition method makes financial sense and what has to happen after someone joins the list.

Start here: Are newsletters still worth it?

Not ideal for: Marketers who do not operate a newsletter or media product.

Best newsletters for GTM, product, and B2B growth

5. Behind the Craft by Peter Yang

Best for: Product managers, engineers, and tech professionals who want practical AI workflows
Frequency: Weekly
Format: Free and paid content

Behind the Craft has evolved from a creator-economy publication into a practical guide to working with AI.

Peter Yang publishes tutorials on prototyping, AI agents, MCP, Claude Code, prompts, and other hands-on workflows. His product experience at companies including Roblox, Reddit, Amazon, and Meta gives him a useful filter for separating tools that improve real work from tools that merely produce a good demo.

Choose it if you want to build with AI, not just read predictions about it.

Not ideal for: Readers looking for classic brand, advertising, or content-marketing advice.

6. GTM Strategist by Maja Voje

Best for: Startup founders, marketers, and operators building a go-to-market motion
Frequency: Weekly
Format: Free newsletter with paid resources

GTM Strategist makes go-to-market strategy concrete.

Maja Voje combines frameworks with examples, checklists, and company teardowns. Topics include ideal customer profiles, positioning, channels, founder-led sales, product launches, and the transition from early traction to a repeatable growth motion.

The newsletter is particularly useful for teams that know they need “GTM” but are still untangling what that means in practice. It connects strategy to the decisions a small team must make this week.

Not ideal for: Large-company marketers looking for mature-enterprise operations advice.

7. Growth Unhinged by Kyle Poyar

Best for: B2B SaaS leaders working on product-led growth, pricing, and monetisation
Frequency: Weekly
Format: Free newsletter

Growth Unhinged is one of the strongest newsletters for understanding how modern software companies grow.

Kyle Poyar writes about product-led growth, packaging, pricing, sales-assisted conversion, AI business models, and go-to-market benchmarks. Issues often combine operator interviews, original data, and a clear point of view.

It is especially valuable when your question sits between product, marketing, sales, and finance—such as how to package an AI feature or when self-serve growth needs human support.

Not ideal for: Consumer marketers or readers looking for campaign-level tactics.

8. How They Grow by Jaryd Hermann

Best for: Growth practitioners who enjoy detailed company teardowns
Frequency: Irregular
Format: Free and paid content

How They Grow publishes long, carefully structured analyses of how notable companies acquired users, built loops, and expanded.

The strongest pieces connect several growth mechanisms instead of isolating a single tactic. You see how positioning, product experience, distribution, retention, and network effects reinforce one another.

The trade-off is cadence. Publishing has been infrequent, so treat the archive as a reference library rather than a newsletter you will reliably receive every week.

Not ideal for: Readers who prefer short, frequent dispatches.

9. Demand Curve Growth Newsletter

Best for: Startup marketers who want tactical growth guidance across channels
Frequency: Weekly
Format: Free newsletter

The Demand Curve newsletter covers acquisition, landing pages, conversion, content, email, and paid growth in a direct, structured format.

Its main strength is breadth without becoming pure news aggregation. The writing usually turns a marketing problem into a framework, checklist, or set of examples that a team can test.

It works well as a general growth-marketing subscription, especially for early-stage teams that need useful ideas across several channels rather than deep expertise in only one.

Not ideal for: Specialists looking for advanced depth in one narrow discipline.

10. Lenny’s Newsletter by Lenny Rachitsky

Best for: Product managers, founders, and growth leaders
Frequency: Weekly
Format: Free and paid newsletter with community access

Lenny’s Newsletter has become a broad operating manual for product-led technology companies.

Lenny Rachitsky combines interviews, benchmarks, tactical guides, and expert contributions on product management, growth, hiring, leadership, marketplaces, and startups. The archive is large enough that it often works better as a searchable reference than a conventional newsletter.

Its scale attracts strong contributors and detailed operator stories. The paid tier is most useful for readers who will also use the archive and community, not just skim the weekly email.

Not ideal for: Marketers who only want advertising and campaign execution.

11. Elena’s Growth Scoop by Elena Verna

Best for: Growth leaders, product-led companies, and marketers developing their growth careers
Frequency: Weekly
Format: Free and paid content

Elena’s Growth Scoop is candid, opinionated, and rooted in senior growth experience.

Elena Verna writes about product-led growth, growth models, retention, experimentation, career progression, team design, and the realities of leading growth inside companies. She is particularly good at naming organisational problems that teams often misdiagnose as channel problems.

Read it when you want to understand not only what a growth team should test, but how the company must be structured for that work to succeed.

Not ideal for: Beginners who need step-by-step channel tutorials.

Best newsletters for social media marketing

12. Link in Bio by Rachel Karten

Best for: Social media managers, strategists, and brand marketers
Frequency: Twice weekly
Format: Free and paid newsletter

Link in Bio is one of the most grounded newsletters about running social media for brands.

Rachel Karten combines interviews with social managers, platform observations, campaign examples, and practical commentary on the work behind a brand account. The writing respects social media as a craft rather than reducing it to posting frequency and engagement hacks.

It is especially useful for people responsible for editorial judgement, community tone, and explaining the value of social work internally.

Not ideal for: Readers looking primarily for paid-social buying tactics.

13. Social Files by Tommy Clark

Best for: B2B founders and marketers using LinkedIn and founder-led social
Frequency: Weekly
Format: Free newsletter

Social Files focuses on the systems behind effective B2B social content.

Tommy Clark writes about LinkedIn strategy, founder-led distribution, content formats, hooks, team workflows, and the difference between posts that earn attention and posts that sound like corporate filler.

The advice is most useful for B2B teams where the founder or subject-matter expert is part of the distribution strategy.

Not ideal for: Consumer social teams working mainly on TikTok, Instagram, or community management.

14. The Social Juice by Jaskaran Singh

Best for: Marketers who want a quick mix of social-media news and practical ideas
Frequency: Weekly
Format: Free newsletter

The Social Juice curates social-platform updates, examples, tools, and tactical observations in a readable format.

It is useful when you want enough industry awareness to stay current without opening a dozen tabs or following every platform employee. The mix is broader and faster than a deep specialist publication.

Not ideal for: Readers looking for one sustained argument or a detailed research report in every issue.

15. Geekout by Matt Navarra

Best for: Social media professionals who need to track platform changes
Frequency: Weekly
Format: Free newsletter

Geekout is a reliable briefing on what social platforms are testing, launching, changing, or quietly removing.

Matt Navarra has spent years tracking product updates across Meta, TikTok, LinkedIn, X, YouTube, and emerging platforms. The newsletter is useful because many social features roll out unevenly and are poorly documented.

Subscribe if platform changes affect your day-to-day work and you need a compact weekly scan.

Not ideal for: Readers who want evergreen strategy rather than news.

Best newsletters for paid advertising

16. The Performers by Aazar Ali Shad

Best for: Performance marketers and creative strategists working on paid social
Frequency: Weekly
Format: Free newsletter

The Performers focuses on Meta ads, performance creative, testing, and campaign execution.

Aazar Ali Shad’s strongest issues break down the relationship between the offer, message, creative concept, and media-buying result. That makes the newsletter useful for both paid-social buyers and the creative teams supporting them.

Choose it if you want specialist paid-social ideas rather than a broad marketing digest.

Not ideal for: Readers focused mainly on organic growth or brand strategy.

17. Bram’s Buzz by Bram Van der Hallen

Best for: Meta advertisers who need product and policy updates
Frequency: Approximately monthly
Format: Free LinkedIn newsletter

Bram’s Buzz covers changes to Meta Ads, including campaign features, measurement, automation, and platform direction.

The value is specificity. Instead of scanning general marketing news for the few items that matter to an advertiser, you get a concentrated view of Meta’s ecosystem from someone who follows it closely.

Not ideal for: Readers who need weekly tactical tutorials or coverage beyond Meta.

Best newsletters for buyer psychology and marketing ideas

18. Why We Buy by Katelyn Bourgoin

Best for: Marketers, founders, and copywriters who want to understand buyer behaviour
Frequency: Weekly
Format: Free newsletter

Why We Buy explains behavioural science in a way marketers can use.

Katelyn Bourgoin takes concepts such as social proof, loss aversion, framing, and choice architecture and connects them to familiar buying situations. The best issues help you see why a message or offer works rather than simply telling you to copy it.

It is an accessible starting point for marketers who want stronger customer research, messaging, and conversion thinking.

Not ideal for: Readers looking for platform news or media-buying advice.

19. Marketing Ideas by Tom Orbach

Best for: Marketers who want unusual campaign ideas and creative prompts
Frequency: Twice weekly
Format: Free and paid content

Marketing Ideas is built for marketers who are tired of seeing the same playbook repeated.

Tom Orbach shares unconventional tactics, examples, and provocations designed to help readers generate ideas. Some suggestions will fit your brand and others will not; the point is to widen the option set before you default to another generic campaign.

Use it as creative stimulus, then apply your own judgement to the execution.

Not ideal for: Teams looking for a complete, evidence-heavy strategy in every issue.

Best newsletter for B2B content marketing

20. Pierre’s Content Guides by Pierre Herubel

Best for: B2B founders and marketers building a content system
Frequency: Weekly
Format: Free and paid content

Pierre’s Content Guides covers B2B content strategy, writing, distribution, repurposing, and the systems needed to publish consistently.

Pierre Herubel’s work is strongest when it turns an abstract content goal into a repeatable workflow. The newsletter is useful for small teams that cannot rely on a large editorial department but still need content to support pipeline and authority.

Not ideal for: Consumer brands or readers looking for paid-media guidance.

Best newsletter for AI in marketing

21. The AI Marketing Generalist by Kieran Flanagan

Best for: Marketing and GTM leaders building AI into their operating systems
Frequency: Weekly
Format: Free newsletter

The AI Marketing Generalist is aimed at marketers who want to move from experimenting with prompts to redesigning workflows.

Kieran Flanagan, formerly SVP of Marketing at HubSpot, writes about AI-assisted research, content systems, agentic workflows, Claude Code, and the changing structure of go-to-market teams.

The newsletter is more technical than most marketing publications. That is a strength if you are ready to build, test, and connect tools rather than only read high-level AI predictions.

Not ideal for: Marketers seeking non-technical beginner guides.

Best general marketing newsletters

22. The Marketing Millennials by Daniel Murray

Best for: Marketers who want a broad, accessible mix of tactics and trends
Frequency: Three times weekly
Format: Free newsletter

The Marketing Millennials covers a wide range of topics in a conversational style, from brand and content to social media and campaign ideas.

Daniel Murray has built a large marketing audience across the newsletter, podcast, and LinkedIn. The breadth makes this a useful orientation tool for early-career marketers and generalists.

The high publishing frequency is the trade-off: not every issue will match your role, but the variety is the reason to subscribe.

Not ideal for: Specialists who only want advanced depth in one channel.

23. Deez Links by Delia Cai

Best for: Media professionals and marketers working at the intersection of culture, content, and the internet
Frequency: Several times weekly
Format: Free and paid newsletter

Deez Links is not a conventional marketing newsletter. Delia Cai writes about media, culture, publishing, and what the internet is paying attention to.

That makes it valuable for marketers whose work depends on taste, storytelling, and cultural awareness. The links-format curation also helps readers discover writing and ideas outside the standard marketing echo chamber.

Not ideal for: Readers who want tactical campaign checklists.

More marketing newsletters worth subscribing to

The 23 newsletters above are the main recommendations. These additional publications are also worth exploring when they match your role:

• Behind the CMO: Interviews and resources for senior marketing leaders who want the CMO perspective.
• Ahrefs’ Digest: SEO and content-marketing guidance backed by strong product data and original research.
• Buffer’s Social Media Newsletter: Accessible social-media strategy for small teams and creators.
• SparkToro: Rand Fishkin on audience research, zero-click behaviour, and the changing search landscape.
• Marketing Brew: A broad industry briefing covering advertising, agencies, brands, social platforms, and media.
• Marketing Examples: Harry Dry’s visual breakdowns of copy, landing pages, campaigns, and positioning.
• Total Annarchy: Ann Handley on writing, content, voice, and the craft of communicating clearly.
• ICYMI: Lia Haberman’s detailed coverage of influencer marketing, creators, and social platforms.
• Stacked Marketer: A fast daily briefing across paid ads, SEO, social media, analytics, and conversion.
• Growth Memo: Kevin Indig on SEO, organic growth, AI search, and the strategy behind sustainable acquisition.
• Really Good Emails: A searchable collection of real email design and copy examples rather than a traditional editorial newsletter.
• Future Commerce: Thoughtful writing on brand, culture, technology, and commerce for DTC and retail leaders.
• The Daily Carnage: A daily collection of campaigns, tools, trends, and creative inspiration.
• Swipe Files: Corey Haines’ examples, teardowns, and frameworks for marketers who learn by studying real work.

How to choose the right marketing newsletters

A long list is only useful if it helps you build a better reading habit.

Start with two newsletters:

1. One specialist newsletter for the skill closest to your work—paid social, product growth, social media, content, or AI.
2. One broader newsletter that exposes you to ideas outside your immediate role.

After a month, keep the newsletters that regularly make you save, forward, test, or discuss something. Unsubscribe from the ones you admire in theory but never open.

The goal is not to build the world’s most impressive inbox. It is to find a small set of writers who improve your decisions.

Frequently asked questions about marketing newsletters

What is the best marketing newsletter in 2026?

There is no universal best marketing newsletter. The most useful choice depends on your job and current priority. Growth in Reverse is a strong fit for newsletter growth, Lenny’s Newsletter for product and startups, Link in Bio for social media, The Performers for paid social, and Marketing Fix for practical growth and paid-social strategy.

What are the best free marketing newsletters?

Most newsletters in this guide offer a free edition. Strong free starting points include Growth in Reverse, Marketing Fix, GTM Strategist, Growth Unhinged, Demand Curve, Link in Bio, Geekout, The Performers, Why We Buy, and The AI Marketing Generalist. Some also offer paid archives, communities, courses, or additional issues.

Which marketing newsletters are best for startup founders?

GTM Strategist, Growth Unhinged, Demand Curve, Lenny’s Newsletter, and Marketing Fix cover the most useful ground for startup founders. Together they address go-to-market strategy, product-led growth, acquisition, positioning, and practical marketing execution.

Which newsletters are best for paid advertising?

The Performers is a specialist choice for paid social and creative strategy. Bram’s Buzz is useful for Meta Ads updates. Marketing Fix connects paid-advertising execution to broader growth strategy, landing pages, and creative judgement. Stacked Marketer is a broader daily briefing that includes paid-media news.

Which marketing newsletters cover AI?

Behind the Craft is best for practical AI tutorials and workflows. The AI Marketing Generalist focuses on AI systems for marketing and go-to-market teams. Growth Unhinged explores the business-model and GTM implications of AI. Marketing Fix covers AI from a practical marketing perspective, including where automation helps and where human judgement still matters.

How many marketing newsletters should I subscribe to?

Start with two or three. Pick one newsletter for your core discipline and one for broader context. If a newsletter remains unread for a month, unsubscribe and use its archive only when you need a specific answer.

Are marketing newsletters better than marketing blogs?

The content can be similar, but the reading behaviour is different. A newsletter arrives on a schedule and builds a habit; a blog waits for you to visit or find it through search. Many strong marketing writers use both: the newsletter creates a direct reader relationship, while the website keeps useful work searchable.

Are all the newsletters in this guide active?

The main list was checked in August 2026. Publishing schedules can change, especially for independent newsletters. How They Grow has published infrequently, so it is better treated as an archive. Before subscribing to any newsletter, check the date of its latest edition.

A final recommendation

Do not subscribe to all 35+ newsletters.

Choose the one that matches the problem you are solving now. Read three recent issues before subscribing. If the writing gives you a useful idea, a better question, or a decision you can make differently, it has earned a place in your inbox.

The post 35+ Best Marketing Newsletters in 2026, Read by TOP 5% Marketers appeared first on Marketing Fix blog.

“Goodbye to All That” is the title of an autobiographical essay by Joan Didion. While I share very little of Didion’s sentimental outlook at leaving New York in the mid-1960s, I’ve always felt a strong affinity with the essay’s title.

I’ve always been one to say adieu: to projects and jobs, to places and dreams.

And now, it’s time for me to say goodbye to marketing.

At least for the next 2 years, for I’m finally ready to take the leap of faith and focus on writing my debut novel.

It feels a little bit insane and a great deal scary

It feels like the absolutely right thing to do.

It feels like… Freedom and purpose, which I’ve lacked for a long time.

On leaving marketing

There are two key reasons why I’m leaving the marketing world for at least the next 24 months.

Reason 1: I no longer enjoy working on marketing in its current AI era, where the sole goal is automation and efficiency. Meanwhile, creativity and integrity are as good dead. Perhaps, things will have (re)turned for the better in 24 months. I remain an optimistic pessimist.

Reason 2: I find meaning and purpose in art, literature, poetry. Reading, thinking, and writing make me feel that the real world, external to the screen, still exists. I’ve been working on my debut novel for the past 3 weeks, and it makes me feel grounded, focused on one thing, instead of jumping between messaging apps.

What about the ongoing projects & the Marketing Fix newsletter?

All my marketing-related projects are going into a looong hibernation. So there won’t be any more Marketing Fixes for the foreseeable future.

Also, I won’t be taking on any new consultation projects.

So, what’s next?

Some people go on jobbaticals. Some take breaks from work to have kids.

All I want is to return to a world free of the always-on hustle and noise. To think, experience, and work on something meaningful.

I returned to London in early September with an idea for my debut novel. Since then, I’ve been going to the British Library five days a week.

Writing a novel is like having a full-time job, and I can’t remember the last time I felt so inspired and determined.

And so, I decided to use my savings to buy 24 months of freedom.

Not to “hang out” or travel, but to work harder than ever.

If you’d like to follow my writerly pursuits and be notified about my upcoming poetry pamphlet, come join me here or say hi on Instagram.

How I’m feeling:

What I’m fearing:

But hey, it’s better to fall
than waste away your life
not having any fun at all
​
Et voilà, a little poem to end this post.

Thanks for reading!
Karola

The post Goodbye to All That Marketing appeared first on Marketing Fix blog.

I actually did go off the platform, only checking a few times to see where the discourse was headed.

It has felt great. No despair from seeing the stupid AI prompt clickbait posts, more time to work on my clients’ marketing projects, blog, and creative writing.

I’m going to stay off LinkedIn for a while.

How LinkedIn went from “less is more” to “more is less”

Back in May 2024, my LinkedIn feed was a waterfall of grindset and broetry.

“Five things I wish I’d known when starting my first company…”

“Once I learned to say no…”

“Never say never.”

Over the next months, while Instagram was having its brat summer, thousands of aspiring business influencers were sweating out three LinkedIn posts per day in content-creator bootcamps.

Had it not been for so many content programs, simultaneously producing self-proclaimed authors (many of whom went on to launch their own programs, oh the downwards spiral), it’s unlikely the cringy posts would have pulled so much traction.

The reason why the posts featuring selfies and life-changing yet mysteriously identical stories of dropping out of college, landing dream jobs, and talking to strangers on streets got all that engagement is that commenting, too, was a checklist exercise towards LinkedIn stardom.

In hindsight, the definition of brat—accepting your imperfections while embracing chaos—seems also like a pertinent descriptor for the pre-ChatGPT era LinkedIn zeitgeist.

Perhaps, 2024 will go down in the annals as the height of civilisation LinkedIn.

Ruminating about my recent LinkedIn fatigue which covers all the available forms of the sensation (physical, mental, emotional, social, moral), I thought of a concept that applies to any social media platform.

In the early days, there’s the online forum-like stage of less is more, where a small community of users engages in a genuine conversation.

This is followed by the general-adoption phase of more is more, where still few enough people publish quality posts, resulting in high engagement, rapid follower growth, and, ideally, income.

Finally, as the barrier of entry gets lower (new tools, free guides) and becoming an influencer is democratically available to anyone, we arrive at the era of more is less, a.k.a. the end of civilisation.

This made me think of the final sequence of Antonioni’s Zabriskie Point (1970) – just beautiful!

Swimming drowning in online slop

Obviously, I’m not the first to note that AI-generated content is shaping the world for worse by impoverishing it of original ideas and intelligent meaning.

​Research published in late 2024 reported that as of October 2024, ca 54% of long-form posts on LinkedIn were AI-generated.

In a recent New York Magazine article, Max Read wrote about the “rising tide of slop [that] has begun to swamp most of what we think of as the internet, overrunning the biggest platforms with cheap fakes and drivel, seeming to crowd out human creativity and intentionality with weird AI crap.”

In my LinkedIn feed, the slop overtake manifests in thousands of posts promising AI prompts, cheatsheets, and breakdowns of X-billion revenue success stories.

Yes, you can do all three in a single post.

The awful thing—or at least what’s so disgusting about it for me—is not that 90% of these posts are copies of other posts, rewritten with AI.

It’s that thousands of people are commenting “prompt” to get access without ever questioning whether the author has ever achieved anything other than 1,000 comments under a LinkedIn post.

It’s that everyone now believes that accessing a half-page Google Doc with an AI prompt will make them rich and famous in 10 minutes instead of hours of real hard work, not to mention thought.

Comment “Vibe marketing”

What really got me was the flood of posts promising AI prompts for auto-generating ad creatives with the latest ChatGPT version.

According to the so-called vibe marketers, you can make millions by selling anything. All you need is AI-generated ads.

Under a single LinkedIn post, 14,260 people decided: Me, too, can create 20 GREAT ads in 10 mins WITH JUST VIBES.

Sorry but LOL.

​

Here’s what’s ironic about this.

As someone who’s spent millions on Meta ad campaigns for 30+ brands, I can tell in 10 seconds that none of the creatives featured in that post would perform well.

All lack a strong value proposition, a promo offer, and a big fat CTA button, to point out only three most obvious shortcomings.

Sometimes, I’ve commented “prompt” out of sheer interest.

Whenever I test those prompts, the resulting ad images are worse than what I could design on Figma in 10 minutes. They’re literally useless.

One more rant and then I’m done, promise.

Last week, i saw a LinkedIn post by a marketing expert saying she booked 20 new leads by commenting under 100 LinkedIn posts over 5 days.

I checked her past 5 days’ comments. (Yes, I do regret wasting my time on this.)

There were eight (not 100), and I can’t possibly imagine which one of the “Exiting news!” or “Thanks for sharing your insights” exclamations got anyone interested in hiring her.

As I couldn’t find the post for this essay, I searched LinkedIn for “20 meetings booked” and realised it was yet another post in yet another copy-and-AI craze.

This is depressing in so many ways.

One of them being that shitposting 5-7 times per week works.

Or does it?

It works for getting likes, comments, and followers.

Does it bring new leads, deals, and clients? – Not in the world I’m living in. (More on this later.)

Preach without practice

What happened to “Practice what you preach” – a LinkedIn post opener that just 12 months ago, one would regularly encounter?

It was flipped into preach without practice.

The overwhelming tsunami of LinkedIn content has led to a point where seeing a LinkedIn post that claims 20 new leads in 10 minutes, instead of questioning the author’s sanity we skip to the comments and type “cheatsheet.”

Don’t get me wrong. It’s not all awful.

There are brilliant subject matter experts using LinkedIn as their primary marketing & growth channel.

Like Maja Voje and Kyle Polar. Like Emily Sundberg and Rachel Karten.

What makes a difference—what makes these authors’ posts authentic and useful—is that they all have 10y+ experience in the industry, and writing a business newsletter is (mostly) their full-time job.

The problem is people with no real experience framing themselves as industry experts at 10min per day.

And who can blame them?

They’ve paid for a content creator workshop.

They’re following the exact checklist & AI prompts catalogue provided by their (self)-qualified coach.

They’ve commented “prompt” under a LinkedIn post with hundreds of comments and must now use it to create more, more, more content—a horrible word in itself.

Most importantly, the posts they generate with Chat GPT or Claude AI or whatever will get hundreds of likes and comments from real people. People like you and me.

No wonder, Sherlock, that this economy of fantastical proficiency leads to content that

a) focuses on cheap virality;

b) is a copy of someone else’s post, which is a copy of someone else’s post, which is… written by AI.
​

I just can’t (do LinkedIn) anymore

I haven’t been able to post on LinkedIn for about two weeks.

It’s not that I’ve lacked ideas.

Rather, I’ve felt a sort of vertiginous revulsion every time I open it in a Chrome window.

The feed is full of false promises, fake expertise, and thousands of people engaging with these.

Why would anyone want to participate, or even contribute?

To learn the latest best practices, build industry relationships, get new clients… You know why!

And all the hours spent on posting, commenting, and liking do pay off, don’t they?

Not in my experience.

Goodbye to all that

I tried active LinkedIn posting from January to April 2025.

Perhaps I didn’t try hard enough – I never reached the 7 posts + 50 comments per week schedule. In a way, I admire the people who can spend several hours daily on the platform. Superhuman stamina.

Posting on LinkedIn helped to grow my newsletter readership, albeit slower than writing a guest article for another newsletter did.

The positive thing about creating these free resources is that they were genuinely helpful for other marketers & founders.

But I might as well have shared them in this newsletter or my blog.

Meanwhile, all my course sales and consulting requests over past 6 months came via referrals and my newsletter (mostly pre-2025 readers).

Not a single new consulting project or course sale came via Linkedin as the first touchpoint.

Instead of spending hours on brainstorming and creating “comment for access” free checklists and libraries, plus more hours designing, writing, and publishing LinkedIn posts…

… I would much rather spend 10h writing a long-form blog article. Or a guest post. Or a newsletter. Or working on an actual project for a client.

Another observation: At least for me, LinkedIn posts got much higher engagement 5-6 months ago compared to April-May 2025.

Every marketer I’ve asked about their LinkedIn engagement confirmed it has dropped.

With more posts and less value, it’ll soon be more efficient to run LinkedIn ads (vs spending billable hours chasing organic reach).

I’m giving up on LinkedIn but… Should you?

In a time when we’re told “you can be doing it all,” doing it all means you can’t do any of it well.

One of the mantras I kept repeating to the participants of my DYI Marketing Audit course was to choose 2-3 marketing channels and focus on scaling them.

As I wrote in a Marketing Fix issue on social media, you should either go ALL IN or ALL OUT on any marketing channel.

We’re surrounded by so much noise.

There’s too much of everything.

The only reasonable response—at least one that I can think of—is to decide what genuinely matters.

The rest you just filter out.

I’m not going to delete my LinkedIn account – I’ll need it for keeping in touch with peers, clients, and colleagues.

But I’m not going to create anything for merely posting on Linkedin.

When I publish a new blog article or newsletter, I’ll share it on LinkedIn as well.

When I have a hot take on something, e.g. Bolt’s brand team flopping their latest campaign because of laziness and cultural ignorance​, I’ll rant about it.

I returned to the crossed-out lines after an evening walk, having realised that I should go full cold turkey on LinkedIn. It only adds anxiety to my life. So I will, at least for the next 3 months. (I use the Texts app on Mac for my LI inbox, so I won’t miss any messages.)

I expect to have a lot more focus time for writing newsletters & blog articles, creating LinkedIn ad strategies & visuals for my clients, planning online courses & conducting marketing audits.

Perhaps, you too have something more meaningful to do with your time than competing with AI and human bots for second-rate attention.

Why not do it?

The post  I Gave Up on LinkedIn. Should you? appeared first on Marketing Fix blog.

If you find the marketing tool market overwhelming, let me assure you that you’re not alone.

In a recent Marketing Fix newsletter issue, I wrote about the Era of Subscriptions and how I realised that my annual marketing tools budget is ca $6,000. Ugh!

I figured it might be helpful to share my marketing tool stack with other practitioners, too.

Perhaps, this expert-tested and carefully curated collection will help you find your next virtual helper – and save you many hours.

Below, you can find my go-to tools and software in 5 categories:

1. Marketing tools for ideation, copywriting, and visuals
2. Social media and email marketing tools
3. Web design, optimisation, and SEO software
4. Tools for creating courses, workshops, and videos
5. Productivity and time tracking apps

But first, I’ve included some thoughts on the subscriptions industry, as well as recommendations on how to select the best marketing tools for your project.

If you’re looking for the list of tools, scroll right down.

Welcome to the Era of Subscriptions, A.K.A. order a puppy for 5 hours

Early 2020s. The main subscription-based articles in our lives are SaaS tools and gym memberships.

Year 2025. Most of us are signed up for 20+ subscriptions. 

“No way, the number can’t be that high,” you say?

Now consider your recurring payments to mobile apps, newsletters, video streaming, music, news, magazines, podcasts, groceries, coffee, Amazon Prime, health & beauty products, gym & classes.

The greatest evil must be Apple’s iCloud Storage, designed to grow YoY.

Name one thing that can’t be found in subscription format.

Animals? Wrong!

How did we end up in a world where even toothpaste is subscriptionised?

Over the past 5 years, the subscription economy has been fuelled by many things, among them Covid-induced laziness of the Western urban population and laws allowing marketplaces to elude social taxes of precarious workers.

No small role was also played by the tech investors dreaming of hockey-stick growth charts of ARR.

The best way to procure the ARR as a brand with a physical consumer product? Introduce monthly subscriptions.

Welcome to the Era of Subscriptions.

Annual subscription fee: $7,600+

Having recently adopted many new productivity and marketing tools (free + paid), I was curious to see how much the invoices in my inbox and bank account add up to.

I found a sleek (and free) Subscriptions Tracker template on Notion Marketplace and entered all my expenses under 7 categories.

​

Work & Marketing software:

• Ideation, copywriting, and visuals
• Social media and email marketing
• Web design, optimisation, and SEO
• Courses, workshops, and videos
• Productivity and time tracking

Lifestyle & intellectual interests:

• Productivity & task management
• Lifestyle, health, and arts

Monthly spend: €618

My initial reaction was a big “Ughhh!”

I knew there were a few expensive marketing tools there, but I wasn’t expecting the total sum to be this much.

Alright, it’s not that bad, I thought, when looking at the per-month aggregate.

But then I switched the chart input to calculate the yearly budget…

Annual spend: €7,429

​

​

The resulting sum is, frankly, horrifying

How on earth!?

And I don’t even subscribe to food delivery or streaming services…!

You’ll find the full list of my subscription expenses below.

But first, a bit of life philosophy.

How much is too much to pay for marketing tools?

After overcoming the initial mini-shock, I went deeper and considered what value each tool adds to my work and life:

• Enabling work projects
• Increasing productivity
• Improving daily life

And so on…

If you’re planning to do the same exercise, here are 3 POWs that might be helpful.

1) Pragmatic: cost / value

Am I making more money thanks to a tool than I spend on it?

2) Productive: cost / time

Saving money feels great, but isn’t your saved time even more valuable?

3) Emotional: cost / happiness

Is the subscription making a significant improvement to your quality of life?

Cheap = expensive

These days, ever more distractions compete for our 16 hours of daily waking time.

There also seems to be more worthwhile projects these days, compared to 10 years ago.

In personal life, this means more friends to catch up with, events to socialise at, articles and books to read, recipes to try, cities to (re)visit, exhibitions to see, barre classes to attend, cafes to linger at, and moments to capture and share.

On the work side, I’m a freelance marketing consultant who also maintains a blog, newsletter, and creates marketing courses.

I wince at the thought of all the hours I’ve spent on LinkedIn to build new connections, write and design posts, and keep in touch with colleagues and clients.

Don’t even mention Instagram…

Saving money feels great until you realise your time is even more valuable.

When selecting the tools for my work, I’d rather spend a bit more to get the industry’s best.

Going with a cheaper option might save you €/$/£100 here and there.

But product limitations (fewer features, low-quality design) + the extra time spent are simply not worth it.

As to productivity and lifestyle subscriptions, some save you time while others, in fact, waste it.

Ask yourself whether that Netflix subscription is actually making you happier – or smarter…

Ok, let’s return the focus on marketing software now.

Investing in tools = investing in growth

Over the past 6 months, I’ve spent ca €2,500 on:

• Marketing and productivity software
• Substack newsletters
• Marketing & design templates

The sum seems rather exuberant in retrospect.

And yet, there’s no other way I could have delivered all my projects without this investment.

Perhaps, I could have chosen a cheaper blog theme than Blocksy Pro (€289/lifetime). Or a cheaper course platform than Kajabi (€209/month). Or used Mac’s free screenshot tool instead of Cleanshot ($29/lifetime).

Perhaps, perhaps, perhaps, I would have saved ca €500.

Certainly, I would have paid in tens (if not 100+) of extra hours, lower-quality branding, and the resulting lost opportunities.
​

Do I regret spending a little fortune on software & tools in 6 months?

No, the investment has well paid off.

I’m even considering getting two extra tools: 🐒

• Superhuman to declutter (and de-stress) my inbox experience, flooded with too many newsletters
• Notion Pro for better LinkedIn giveaways & course resource management

In order to make money, you need to spend money

I was reminded of this point of view last weekend, while weeding my garden.

I was listening to a recent Delivering Value podcast episode with Maja Voje.

She said that it took her years to realise: “In order to make money, you need to spend money.”

The logic rings more true than ever.

Over the past 6 months, I have…

• Worked on two long-term marketing consulting projects
• Wrote a 360-degree marketing audit for three companies
• Rebranded my newsletter to a new strategic focus and design
• Switched my blog theme and redesigned most of it
• Created and launched my first-ever marketing course
• Grew my LinkedIn account to 13k+ followers with 2-3 posts/week

​
​The list is not a complaint. Nor is it a boast.

We all have to work, and many of us enjoy the process.

I love learning new skills; I thrive when (self-)challenged.

The list is the key reason why I looked up and tested tens of new marketing tools and began paying for several of them.

I also made several one-off purchases of other marketing experts’ resources (like Maja’s GTM Checklist) to improve my skill set faster. (These are not included in the Notion doc.)

Below, you can see the full list of the paid and free tools that I use in my marketing projects and personal life – my Mary Poppins bag of marketing tools.

My Mary Poppins bag of marketing tools

First, an important clarification…

The Mary Poppins “purse” is a model of the ’60s carpet bag.

Among other paraphernalia, it contained a hat stand, a mirror, a houseplant, and a floor lamp.

Thx God the marketing tools are virtual. The only thing they weigh down is one’s bank account balance.

All the marketing and productivity tools mentioned are ones that I currently use or have used for some client projects.

I hands-down recommend them all.

Without further ado, here they are.

1. Marketing tools for ideation, copywriting, and visuals

​Figma PRO: Design for website, ad creatives, social media posts, newsletter, etc.

​Canva: Design tool for marketers who haven’t yet learned to use Figma

​Adobe Firefly: AI-generated images, e.g the featured images in this blog

​Adobe Express: Editing images, e.g. removing background and changing size

​Grammarly: Checking spelling mistakes in my Google Docs, newsletter, social posts

​CleanShot: Taking high-quality screenshots and adding special edits + recording GIFs

​ChatGPT: Researching ideas and topics, getting copywriting angles (never the full text)

​Miro: Workshops and brainstorming for consulting projects

2. Social media and email marketing tools

​KIT: My go-to newsletter marketing tool for Marketing Fix

​Sparkloop: Newsletter referrals for Marketing Fix

​Taplio: The very best LinkedIn tool for analytics and content generation

​Texts: Mac desktop app that consolidates all your messages, e.g. from LinkedIn and Instagram

​Octopus CRM: My go-to tool for growing LinkedIn follower base with automated invitations and welcome messages

​Instantly: The best sender domain warmup tool to ensure your emails land in the Inbox

3. Web design, optimisation, and SEO software

​Blocksy PRO: Super flexible & high-quality WordPress theme used for this blog

​Wisepops: Hands down the most flexible and good-looking pop-up tool

​Lasso: Website add-on for beautiful product offer layouts

​Wappalyzer: Browser extension that shows all the tools and pixels on any website

​Moz: Top SEO tool, I use their free browser extension for optimisation & research

​SemRush: Top SEO & PPC tool, I use the free version extension for research

​SimilarWeb: Web and SEO analysis tool, I use it for site traffic analysis

4. Tools for creating courses, workshops, videos

​Kajabi: All-in-one course management platform, best in the industry

​Tally: Typeform-style tool for collecting user feedback and doing website surveys

​Senja: The very best tool for collecting and showcasing testimonials

​Typeform: Top website form tool with lots of features and layouts

5. Productivity and time tracking apps

​Calendly: Meeting scheduling

​Teamweek: Now Toggl Plan, I’ve used it for task management for 5+ years

​Toggl: Time tracking for freelance projects and every other work-related task

​Notion PRO: Project management and documentation + content management

​Slack: Better turn your phone notifications off

​Evernote: Desktop app that I use for note-taking and drafting texts

​
Et voilà, this was my list of marketing tools and software that I use daily.

The awful – or good – thing is that looking at this list, there’s nothing I’d willingly give up.

And yet, I’m going to play Easter Egg hunt this weekend and hide some of those from my bank account for good.

This time, too much is too much.

Wondering what to do next?

Get bi-weekly marketing and growth advice by joining 15k+ marketers in the Marketing Fix newsletter community.

Recommended articles for further reading:

• My 20go-to marketing newsletters
• 105+ LinkedIn ad examples from top B2B brands
• My 55+ predictions for 2025 marketing trends

The post The Marketing Tools That I Use Every Single Week appeared first on Marketing Fix blog.