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:

• The very best marketing newsletters in 2025
• 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.

There were so many good examples.

Part of my bad-examples-draught problem was that I’d been looking up the top B2B brands’ ads directly in the LinkedIn Ad Library.

Once I switched to my own LinkedIn feed, the quality of creatives dropped significantly.

Hurray, there are still plenty of B2B brands making awful mistakes, I thought.

Once my thumb stopped at a LinkedIn ad by LinkedIn itself, I knew I had hit the goldmine.

LinkedIn’s LinkedIn ad mistakes

Take a look at these three ad examples.

Not necessarily awful, you say?

Well, yes. They look like something of a mediocre B2B brand’s ads from 2010.

But if you’ve looked at some excellent LinkedIn ad examples, you can see what I mean.

Not awful is not great.

No good performance marketer would accept a ROAS (return on ad spend) that’s “not awful.”

Adding insult to injury is the fact that Reddit is absolutely killing it with their LinkedIn ads.

Here are some more LinkedIn for Marketing ad creatives that popped up in my LI feed.

Can you tell the mistakes they’re making?

Let’s take a look at some key mistakes – and ensure you will avoid them in your own paid ads game.

My bet is that if LinkedIn’s paid advertising team would fix these 10 mistakes, their ROAs would improve 2x or more.

The first ad creative is in landscape format, meaning it uses up only about 60% of the total available LinkedIn feed real estate.

The colour scheme is faded and boring; it doesn’t convey excitement.

And the in-image text blends into the background; you have to make an effort to read it.

The other two examples are slightly better. 

However, now they’re missing a call-to-action button.

And there is no illustration of the product or the benefit.

There are too many colours for a single ad creative: dark grey, light green, vintage green, three different blues, and white.

Batch two.

In addition to ad design issues, you can also recognise some copywriting mistakes: weak value proposition and abstract propositions (“shape perceptions”), no social or number-led proof in in-image or ad text.

Speaking of design problems, you shouldn’t be using stock photos in your paid ad creatives. 

Especially in 2025 when it’s incredibly easy to create unique illustrations and images with a little help from AI image generation tools.

I always recommend to my B2B clients not to use stock photos – or images of people in general – on their landing pages and paid ad creatives.

Why?

Whichever picture you select, even if you do make an attempt at diversity, will only be relatable to 5% of all people who see it.

For example, even the diversity-positive pictures in Stocksy – my go-to photo gallery for high-quality pictures – represent a minuscule part of society.

I, as a marketing strategist working with brands with glossy offices, should relate to the people in these photos. It is likely that so should you – a fellow marketer.

But these people are not like me: they recall a generic Netflix office series, not a realistic day-to-day office life.

So what visuals should you use instead of stock images?

To find out, join my B2B ad creatives course here.

But before, copy and save the list of 10 LinkedIn ad creatives mistakes to save your own team from making these blunders.

10 LinkedIn ad creative mistakes to avoid

Don’t make these obvious mistakes:

1. Boring ad image layout
2. Missing call-to-action button
3. No illustration of product or benefit
4. Eclectic colour scheme
5. Generic stock photos
6. Overcrowding ad image with text 
7. Impractical information overload
8. Hidden or missing value proposition
9. Tiny product screenshots
10. No bold headline in ad image

Thanks for reading!

This article first appeared in the Marketing Fix newsletter. 

Join 15,000+ strategic marketers who get bi-weekly secret-sauce growth strategies, free templates, and growth hacks that I’ve learned by consulting 50+ tech and consumer brands.

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The post 10 LinkedIn Ad Mistakes… Made by LinkedIn Itself appeared first on Marketing Fix blog.

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

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

• 215+ Best Facebook Ad Examples (2025 Update) – this guide
• 35 Best Facebook Video Ad Examples
• 80+ TOP Instagram Ad Examples
• 40 Instagram Story Ad Examples
• 100+ LinkedIn Ad Examples

When working on B2B and B2C brands’ Facebook ad campaigns, I always check what their competitors are doing. For more than 8 years, I’ve taken screenshots whenever I see an inspiring example.

In this list of 215+ 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

Keep reading to learn more Meta ad best practices, followed by specific ad examples.

2025 Facebook ad examples

Ads that worked in 2020 may not deliver high ROI (return on investment) in 2025. To improve your results, you must be constantly experimenting with new ideas, perhaps even use AI for ad generation.

See inspiring Facebook ad creatives from brands across 10 industries:

1. B2C (business to consumer) beauty products
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

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

Access free LinkedIn ad examples gallery, 2025

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. 

Access free LinkedIn ad examples gallery, 2025

#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. 

Read more: 25+ TOP Marketing Newsletters that I recommend in 2025

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 215+ Best Facebook Ad Examples (NEW 2025 Update) appeared first on Marketing Fix blog.

The ones that are truly worth subscribing for, and don’t just leave your inbox clogged with unread messages…

Here are the TOP 15 newsletters for curious marketers:

1. Growth in Reverse by Chenell Basilio
2. Creator Science by Jay Clouse
3. Marketing Fix by Karola Karlson
4. Newsletter Operator by Matt McGarry
5. Marketing Ideas by Tom Orbach
6. GTM Strategist by Maja Voje
7. Growth Unhinged by Kyle Poyar
8. How They Grow by Jaryd Hermann
9. Demand Curve by Julian Shapiro
10. Lenny’s Newsletter by Lenny Rachitsky
11. Social Files by Tommy Clark
12. ​Social Juice by Jaskaran Singh
13. The Performers by Aazar Ali Shad
14. Bram’s Buzz by Bram Van der Hallen
15. Kieran’s Monthly by Kieran Flanagan

Keep reading for an overview of each newsletter, links for subscribing, and even more suggestions.

Why should you read marketing newsletters in 2025?

These days, no top marketers learn by reading articles in old marketing blogs.

Instead, they search their LinkedIn feeds for the latest news and discussions.

And they open their inboxes to find new deep dives on growth tactics, social media hacks, and strategic GTM by the leading content creators in industry.

One thing that amazed me while researching the best marketing/growth newsletters is the abundance of excellence.

Two more takeaways:

1. 75% of the big newsletters run on Substack…
2. And their creators make millions of $ annually from subscriptions, courses, and consulting.

Huh, what a world…

So all the more reason for them to pour hours, thought, and craft into the weekly dispatches. And all the more reason to subscribe and get the top-quality articles (mostly) for free.

I listed 15 newsletters that I genuinely value and try to read weekly. They’re my go-to Narnia closet into new experiments, tools, and growth tactics.

TOP newsletters for audience growth

Let’s start with the best marketing creators that write about building audience and selling products.

1. Growth in Reverse by Chenell Basilio (60k readers)

If there’s one marketing newsletter that I never leave unopened, it’s Chenell’s. Every week, she spends 20h reverse engineering million-dollar newsletter’s growth journey. And guess what – the (often genius) hacks these creators use are applicable to product-led companies, too.

Start by reading: 7 Newsletter Growth Strategies From Studying Top Creators

2. Creator Science by Jay Clouse (60k readers)

Jay’s newsletter’s signup page says it all: “weekly experiments, expert insights, and proven strategies to grow your audience, build trust, and boost your income.”

Start by reading: Designing Your Premise

3. Marketing Fix by Karola Karlson (15k readers)

Join 15,000+ marketers & founders reading the Marketing Fix newsletter. Biweekly on Fridays, you’ll get new secret-sauce 🥫🥫🥫 growth strategies, free templates, and growth hacks tested on 50+ startups. Plus occasional feisty opinion pieces.

Start by reading: 55+ predictions for 2025 marketing trends

4. Newsletter Operator by Matt McGarry (N/A readers)

About 80% of Matt’s content is focused on newsletter growth. The other 20% is articles on building his own business: experiments, growth levers, and more. Another newsletter in my inbox that I always open.

Start by reading: How To Get Your First 1,000 Newsletter Subscribers In 30 Days

5. Creator Economy by Peter Yang (70k readers)

Peter spent 10+ years leading product teams at Meta, Amazon, Reddit, and Roblox. Now, he’s covering product growth and AI tech in his Creator Economy newsletter. The point of it? To make us excited about tech world again – and he very often succeeds.

Start by reading: 30 Lessons from 30 Top Product Leaders

Newsletters for growing market share & revenue

If you’re interesting in learning about product growth and grow-to-marketing strategy, these are the best five newsletters to subscribe to.

6. GTM Strategist by Maja Voje (15k readers)

Maja’s newsletter (and LinkedIn content) is one of my recent favourite discoveries. What I find most valuable are the templates Maja sources from other creators or creates by herself.

Start by reading: One Page, <20 min: All You Need to Craft Your Business Strategy
​

​

7. Growth Unhinged by Kyle Poyar (65k readers)

Kyle’s free marketing newsletter takes a close look at the unorthodox playbooks of fastest-growing startups. Expect in-depth case studies and deep dive takes on pricing & packaging, go-to-market strategy, SaaS metrics, product-led growth (PLG) and more.

Start by reading: “The best growth advice of 2024”

8. How They Grow by Jaryd Hermann (28k readers)

If you’re interested in the backstage of high-growth brands’ marketing & product decisions, you’ve just got to read How They Grow. My personal favourites are the breakdowns of specific companies’ growth strategies, e.g. “How Figma Grows” and “How Shopify Grows.” Jaryd’s product background makes him a great analyst to spot product-led growth tactics.

Start by reading: “How do the greatest companies win?”

9. Demand Curve by Julian Shapiro (101k readers)

Julian’s newsletter looks at fast-growing startups’ tactics and strategies, and gets you excited about testing ‘em all on your own product. The subjects range from detailed channels’ hacks to high-level thinking – you’ll never know what’s coming next but it’s certainly interesting.

Start by reading: 10 Ways to Write Hooks (with examples)

10. Lenny’s Newsletter by Lenny Rachitsky (959k readers)

As the insane number of subscribers hints, this newsletter is a HIT. Read it for deep dives on household-name tech companies’ growth tactics, as well as invaluable product strategy guides.

I can’t even pick one article I most like… There are so many, conveniently listed under a post titled “The Best of Lenny’s Newsletter—2024 Edition”

Newsletters to grow your socials & paid ad campaign ROI

Alright, social media and paid social marketers. Here comes your list.

11. Link in Bio by Rachel Karten (96k readers)

Rachel is an LA-based a social media consultant and Link in Bio one of the top social media newsletters on Substack. From UGC to TikTok trends to Moo Deng memes, Rachel’s emails keep you informed about the very freshest news on the social landscape.

Start by reading: What I Learned From Interviewing 36 Social Media Leaders in 2024

​

12. Social Files by Tommy Clark (22k readers)

The title of Tommy’s newsletter is slightly misleading. In fact, he shares much more than just social media tips: behind-the-scenes of SaaS launches, deep dives into multi-billion brands’ content strategy, and more.

Start by reading: Inside Beehiiv’s $50M social content playbook

13. The Performers by Aazar Ali Shad (13k readers)

Aazar is one of the rare marketers who a) has an impressive list of clients he’s helping with Meta ad campaigns, and b) shares the top learnings in a paid advertising newsletter. Get on the 2025 bandwagon by reading about UGC-style ads, best-performing creative hooks, and 10x-ing ad creative testing.

Start by reading: How to Systematically Lower Your CAC on Meta (in 10 Steps)
​

14. Bram’s Buzz by Bram Van der Hallen

Bram is the only content creator with a successful LinkedIn-hosted newsletter I know of. Every month, he covers the most important updates of Meta’s ad platform, and adds tons of value with Meta ad templates and screenshot libraries.

The latest dispatch: Bram’s Buzz – Edition 14, 2024

15. Kieran’s Monthly Newsletter by Kieran Flanagan (N/A readers)

Kieran got my attention with three promises: 1)This is the newsletter for the marketers who want to be in the 5%. 2) I only post when I have something of interest to share. 3) He’s the SVP of Marketing at HubSpot. His recent LinkedIn posts on AI have unique POVs, so do his newsletters.

Want more wisdom tsunami?

Here are some more marketing newsletters well worth the mention.

​Marketing Newsletter by Ortus Club

​Why be Buy by Katelyn Bourgoin

​Social Juice by Jaskaran Singh

​The Pipeline by Austin Hughes

​Geekout by Matthew Navarra

Marketing Ideas by Tom Orbach

​Pierre’s Content Guides by Pierre Herubel

​Elena’s Growth Scoop by Elena Verna

​Own Your Category by Josh Lowman

​The Marketing Millennials by Daniel Murray

​Deez Links by Delia Cai

Tl;dr Marketing by Saijo George

And here are some more (!) quite good ones by marketing blogs and software companies:

Ahrefs’ Digest by Ahrefs

Social Media Newsletter by Buffer

The Moz Top 10 by Moz

 Growthnotes by inBeat

The Hustle by HubSpot

The post 25+ Best Marketing Newsletters in 2025 – Read by TOP 5% Marketers appeared first on Marketing Fix blog.

Every Friday, you’ll get new secret-sauce 🥫🥫🥫 growth strategies, free templates, and hacks I’ve used on 50+ startups. I also share occasional feisty opinion pieces (like this one).

…

What is a marketing audit?

You can 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.

As I wrote in a previous article on TOP mistakes of slow-growth companies, “the goal of a marketing audit is to understand how your business is doing in all aspects and channels of marketing and growth.”

A well-done marketing audit will…

1. Align your marketing strategy with your revenue goals.
2. Show which of your marketing channels bring high v.s. low ROI.
3. Reveal what your competitors’ best practices & strategies.
4. Give you new ideas and opportunities for growth.
5. Result in a prioritised roadmap for the next 6 months.

In order to get answers to all of the above questions, you’ll have to invest a good amount of time into the audit.

When conducting marketing audits for my clients, I usually spend 20+ hours and the resulting document is about 60 pages long (including screenshots).

What does a marketing audit cover?

A good marketing audit digs into every aspect of your strategy, acquisition, and customer engagement activities.

Here are the 8 key chapters of a marketing audit:

1. Results & Reporting
2. Website & Purchase Flow
3. Brand & Value Proposition
4. Social Media Marketing
5. Customer Acquisition
6. Content Marketing & SEO
7. Email Marketing & Automation
8. Summary & Next 12 Months Plan

Previously, I’ve also used the following template:

How to do a marketing audit?

The best way to do a marketing audit is 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.

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?
• Or are you just checking if your marketing aligns with your overall business goals?

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

Expert v.s. in-house?

There’s also the question of whether to do your audit in-house or hire and external expert.

After conducting 20+ marketing audits for both B2C and B2B companies, I dare to suggest that you hire someone with previous audit experience to create the 1st audit for you.

After you’ve seen how to do an extensive analysis, you could keep doing it on your own every next 6 months.

However, if you feel like doing an audit on your own, here is the list of 80 marketing audit questions.

Checklist of 80 marketing audit questions

In preparation for my ​DIY Marketing Audit: 6-Week Course​, I updated my personal checklist of 80 marketing audit questions.

Then I thought: it’s tough times of tight budgets in many companies.

So I turned it into a free Notion board to help anyone figure out their 2025 marketing strategy.

Here are 5 questions for each marketing audit chapter:

Results & Reporting:

1. Have you got an up-to-date weekly/monthly KPI sheet for marketing ROI tracking?
2. Is there a clear marketing plan & budget for the next 6/12 months?
3. If working with agencies: Is there transparent monthly reporting on KPIs like Cost-Per-Lead and ROI?
4. Do you know where your web traffic & purchases are coming from?
5. Can you track the ROI of every marketing channel you spend on?

Website & Purchase Flow:

1. Does you website header clearly communicate your product and its 1-2 key benefits?
2. Do you use numbers to communicate your unique value proposition + social proof?
3. Are there clear CTAs with the next step you want the visitor to take?
4. Is your product well visualised on the Home page?
5. Are your product features & benefits communicated clearly + differentiate you from competition?

Brand & Value Proposition:

1. Do you have a clear understanding of who your ICPs (Ideal Customer Profiles) are?
2. Are your brand USPs strong enough to convert people to buyers?
3. How does the brand compare to competitors in terms of pricing, quality, and customer experience?
4. Is your brand differentiated from the competition + superior in at least one aspect (that you own)?
5. How well does your brand align with its target audience’s expectations and needs?

Social Media Marketing:

1. What social media platforms does your brand currently use, and are all accounts active?
2. Are your social media profiles consistent in branding (logos, banners) AND messaging (tone of voice)?
3. Is your social media content having high engagement (likes, comments, shares, DMs)?
4. Do you have a social media strategy & plan laid out for 4 weeks in advance?
5. Compared to competition, if your social media content high or low performing?

Customer Acquisition:

1. Do you have a clear documentation of all paid and organic marketing channels with results and ROI?
2. Are your acquisition efforts aligned with broader business and marketing objectives >> driving revenue?
3. What are your TOP 5 acquisition channels that drive sales and revenue?
4. Are there any channels underperforming or delivering diminishing returns? >> Stop spending time & budget on these.
5. What paid/organic marketing channels perform best for your competitors? What can you learn from it?

1. Is there a clear & documented content strategy, and does it drive revenue in the long run?
2. What types of content are you producing (e.g., blog articles, videos, industry reports), and are they effective?
3. What types of content are your competitors producing and what can you learn from them?
4. What types of content you’ve put out have gotten the highes engagement?
5. What types of content that you’ve published got almost no engagement? >> replace these with high-performing content.

Email Marketing & Automation:

1. Do you have an email automation strategy to convert cold leads into customers?
2. Are your automation workflows set up for key customer touchpoints (welcome emails, abandoned cart reminders, re-engagement campaigns)?
3. Are you leveraging behavioral triggers (downloads, product actions, purchase history) for personalised automation?
4. How clean is your email list? Are inactive or unengaged subscribers being managed or removed?
5. Are you actively adding new subscribers via website popups, social media posts, and paid ads?

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 marketing activities 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 next 6 months, where would you focus?

Want 40 extra marketing audit questions?

To see the full list of 80 questions (5 more in each category), get access to the Notion library by clicking the button below.

The post 80 Marketing Audit Questions: Free Checklist appeared first on Marketing Fix blog.

…

TL;DR: Marketing trends will continue to shift A LOT this year…

Writing about 2024 marketing trends, I focused on the Big Five of trends, including Gen Z social media, UGC-style content, AI hype going down (I was wrong) and sustainability going up.

An important shift form the early 2020s is that marketing strategies, tactics, and channels have become increasingly differentiated among B2B v.s. B2C, virtual v.s. physical products.

Also, there’s a whole new space of AI marketing tools, the Everything Bagel Magic Powder to sprinkle on tasks that must become more efficient. Will we want to go on eating, daily, fast-delivery but low-quality dishes that all taste the same?

In 2025, I decided to do the annual fortune telling slightly differently…

As I failed to finalise my personal INs and OUTs list in time for the NYE (I got as far as hypocrisy: OUT and coconut: IN), I’m going to make up for this oversight in my business-realm predictions.

Opinionated as ever, here come my predictions for 2025 marketing trends in six categories.

My experience being primarily in brand, marketing, and growth strategies for Seed and A-round tech companies, the forecasts are probably most relevant to the techy-unicorny world.

However, there will be food for thought (bagels!) for marketers/founders in all industries.

Check this out (if you want to prepare yourself for 2025) : 80 Marketing Audit Questions – Free Checklist

And learn to become better in marketing from these 25+ TOP Marketing & Growth Newsletters that I recommend in 2025.

AI will be a huge marketing trend in 2025, as it was already in the second half of 2024.

The question is: do we actually want the resulting average-content tsunami to wash over our inboxes & feeds?

IN:

• More AI tools to automate more tasks & be more efficient. What’s done with the time saved with “efficiency” remains a mystery.
• More lame, inhuman, uncreative content flooding all social media feeds until, around 2027, the last human logs off their Instagram, TikTok, and LinkedIn accounts.
• A few actually useful AI tools that automate intern- and specialist-level tasks. Like AI-compiled media monitoring reports, AI-scraped + enriched lead lists.

OUT:

• Creativity + personality in advertising, social posts, sales pitches >> leading to worse results for marketing teams using AI tools.
• Manual reporting + spreadsheet’ing that leads to better understanding of what’s working and what isn’t.
• Engagement on social media and elsewhere. There is simply too much CONTENT.

Also IN:

• Ad creatives done with AI tools (the top Q4 2024 trend was UGC-style video ads) that perform worse than ads done by experienced graphic desigers.
• Democracy: more small brands able to launch digital ad campaigns without hiring an agency.
• AI-written marketing & sales emails that sound like your grandfather’s been let loose behind keyboard: awkward.
• C-level people’s inboxes flooded by 10x more spammy sales & marketing emails >> leading to new AI-powered inbox curation tools get lots of VC interest.

​

By the 2nd half of 2025, everyone is so tired of AI that we finally begin thinking with our own heads again.

Bad marketers will be unable to restore their creative brain cells. Good marketers get lots of job offers and/or a raise.

The key social media trend in 2025 will be: less is more. Think high-quality content that really makes people (you yourself) want to engage with it.

IN:

• All social channels: posts and videos that either a) entertain or b) teach something new and original get most engagement.
• Instagram & TikTok: More (big-)brand collaborations with celebrities + other big-name brands.
• Instagram & TikTok: Reels videos bring 90% or more of total reach. UGC-style videos continue to get highest engagement.
• Instagram & TikTok: Meme-style videos and images with brand insertions.
• LinkedIn: “Comment to get X” style posts get highest engagement. B2B creators give away even more valuable stuff. More people begin to give away free stuff until the entry level gets too high for most.
• LinkedIn: Even more C-level people building a personal brand. Errr, their marketing team building their personal brand >> more hiring for social media positions.

Big IN:

• Reddit! More of us resort to Reddit as the last humans-only social platform with trustworthy information.

OUT:

• All social channels: Easy growth for brands with unoriginal ideas/product that can’t hire a good social media marketer and/or agency.
• TikTok: Fatigue on both consumer + marketing team level >> fewer collaborations with TikTok content creators.
• Instagram: Brand accounts with mediocre content stop getting any engagement on their feed posts. It’s a MUST to do creative & fun Stories + Reels.
• LinkedIn: Video posts are out. We’re finally ready to admit the algos don’t love them.
• LinkedIn: Carousel posts that were bread-and-butter in 2024 get low engagement.
• LinkedIn: Personal-story style posts with overflowing fake emotionality. “I had tears in my eyes when reading your comments.” Please, get a grip on yourself and/or book a therapist consultation.

Branding in 2025 will take some interesting turns, from anti-AI storytelling to multi-million brand collaborations with film stars, pop artists, and top 1% social media creators.

IN:

• Anti-AI brand storytelling. “There is no AI” inside our product becoming a relevant value proposition to large customer segments.
• Brands with original—borderline insane—storytelling. Think Liquid Death and IKEA. Big props Bolt’s brand team who boarded the train already in late 2023.
• AI-powered (visual) brand generation. Unsure yet if this is a good or a bad thing. Certainly, we’ll end up with more of the same and boring. But more brands can launch faster.
• Big-name brand collaborations with movies, celebrities, other big-name brands. Developed as multi-million advertising campaigns, both online and offline.
• B2B influencer marketing. LinkedIn Content Creator is now a valid (and lucrative) job title.

OUT:

• AI-led brand storytelling. Guess what… Not everyone wants AI algorithms to choose what they eat, listen, watch.
• B2C influencer marketing. The ROI just doesn’t justify it, and people don’t engage with obviously sponsored content.
• Great product being enough to win new users’ attention & love. In the overcrowded, all products need an engaging brand narrative and strategy to get it before people’s eyes.
• Especially in B2B software: Best products no longer take over competitors’ clients. The first movers will lock in most users as it’s too time- and energy-consuming to change tools/things for just another 10% improvement.

A very sad OUT:

• Sustainability and CSR. We tried, people didn’t care, we were the people.
• Greenwashing is finally out. Everyone’s tired of being treated like an idiot by brands saying their product is sustainable because it’s packaged in recyclable cardboard box.

​

In 2025, we’re finally admitting our hypocrisy as consumers: “green” equals not buying. But instead of not buying, we’ll simply stop talking about fake sustainability nonsense.

On the bright side, second-hand and vintage apps + platforms will continue to thrive. It’s cheaper, more original, and delivered to your doorstep. And (!) things produced before Y2K (2000) have 10x superior quality v.s. current Big Retail output (same goes for luxury brands).

In advertising (both offline and online) there will be a drop in spending across platforms. Not only has the ROI of paid ads declined over the past five years – there is also less budget to spend.

IN:

• PR and publicity continues to be a high-ROI marketing investment. In case you have something interesting—or crazy—to say.
• Medium-size brands (in addition to household name brands) shifting to soft storytelling and brand campaigns v.s. performance marketing.
• Advertisements (online + offline) with huge IN YOUR FACE TEXT blocks on single-colour backgrounds as our collective attention span deteriorates further to invertebrate level.
• Google Ads continue to outperform other digital ad channels.
• More marketers launching Reddit ads, now that there’s a bigger audience on the platform >> buy Reddit stock NOW?

OUT:

• Digital advertising on Meta + TikTok keeps getting more expensive and less efficient. >> But is there a better option, especially for small brands? Organic social + top-quality content + cold sales seem like top contenders.
• Static ad creatives with clear messaging still outperform most video ads.
• As in any other year, advertisements with ultra-creative copywriting and design that perform worse than ads saying “get 20% your first order”—or better yet, ads saying “SALE.” Will creative teams and ad agencies ever learn?

​
​High-level OUT:

• Money. At times of shaky economy, companies will cut spending in all areas, and marketing is one of the first to take the hit. We’ll probably see more layoffs (specialist-level people replaced with AI) and advertising budget cuts.
• Growth. The cost-cutting festival will also mean slower growth for most companies. Especially as market is reluctant to spend.

​

Not to lose faith! Many successful companies were launched during recession. And it’s because of low competition, lower advertising costs, access to talent that they could expand so fast. Think Uber, Airbnb, Slack, Pinterest, Instagram in 2008.

In 2025, high-quality web and brand aesthetics become key to earning customers’ trust, as well as getting their attention in the first place.

Do not rely on AI for your creatives.

IN:

• Small brands using AI tools like Canva for marketing creatives and wondering why their marketing isn’t working.
• AI-generated photos and CGI animations that are, in fact, an improvement from stock photos & videos.
• Many cool aesthetic trends, from 3D to Y2K retro style to frosted-glass effects >> innovation won’t stop but is affordable to well-funded brands mostly.
• Template-based websites for small and just-launched brands that look better than what average branding agencies produce. Premium-level $100 templates on Squarespace, WordPress, WebFlow have gotten good.
  ​

OUT:

• AI design tools will eventually lose users as they fail to deliver high-quality creatives.
• Social media experts & paid social marketers who can’t use Figma. Hate to break this to you but Canva templates are just not good enough. They never were.
• Collaborating with large we-do-it-all agencies >> shift towards boutique agencies & freelance experts to work with high-level experts v.s. have juniors on your campaigns.

​

As I observed in a LinkedIn post, it was sad to see Adobe’s annual design trends report shift from cool stuff to AI stuff this year. For aesthetic inspiration in 2025, I recommend these two reports on Behance. One. Two.

Traditional blog-based content marketing is dead in 2025. Content marketers will need to diversify into newsletters and social media marketing.

IN:

• Newsletters! Brands launching their own Substacks or other-platform newsletters that are so good they compete with media publications. See more: 25+Best Marketing Newsletters in 2025.
• B2B brands publishing less but higher-quality content. Think extensive guides, free courses, trend reports v.s. 800-word blog articles.
• B2C brands launch their own media publications, either news-style or video platforms that compete with big media companies vis à vis quality and audience numbers. See
• Marketers using AI tools for content writing. Hate, no, happy to break this to you: no AI tool can write text 100% as good as one written by an experienced writer.
• BUT good writers can use ChatGPT (you really need no other tools) to accelerate their research + writing process.

All my predictions here are AI-free. I wasn’t even tempted to ask ChatGPT “what are the marketing trends in 2025?” It would simply scrape other blog articles, mostly by junior marketers. Would you really want to read those?

OUT:

• For most brands, publishing a blog for SEO purposes is passé. AI-powered search results kill lots of organic traffic, content marketing becomes more technical and complicated.
• People coming to your blog directly. Nope, you’ll have to work hard on marketing any piece of content to attract people to it: social media, newsletter, paid ads.
• Podcasts as marketing strategy is finally out. There are too many good established ones competing for the time we all save thanks to AI tools—and that we spend watching Netflix or YouTube…

Personal IN:

• Whenever googling stuff like “best toaster” or “best recipe for x” adding the word “Reddit” to the end of my query and trusting people in Reddit forums to get honest, human, useful information.

…

​Thanks for reading!

Want more articles like this? Subscribe to my weekly newsletter with 15,000+ readers.

The post 55+ Predictions for 2025 Marketing Trends appeared first on Marketing Fix blog.

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Are industry trend reports worth the marketing investment?

Last week, I wrote about creating a 30-page industry report for a B2B brand I’m working with.

It took me ca 55h to research, write, design, and promote it, plus report on results.

Was this enormous undertaking worth it?

Many B2B software behemoths (HubSpot, Adobe, Salesforce), by launching and promoting “X Year Trends in X” reports seem to validate the strategy.

But what about the small B2B brands just entering the market?

Based on my experience, the strategy indeed does work. But there are also many caveats, lots of IFs.

Before you decide whether trend report is something to test out in 2025, there are many aspects to take into consideration. By the end of this newsletter, you’ve read my two cents on the subject.

But first, let’s continue from where the previous newsletter stopped. We covered the full creation process from initial idea to final design.

Now, we’ve ended up with a PDF-format 2025 Sales x AI Trend Report.

What’s next?

Before kicking off the promotion strategy, there’s an important question to answer…

​

What’s your end goal?

Let’s start by what should not be the end goal:

1) Having a beautiful trend report to add to the blog / website. Nobody will find it unless you go out of your way to promote it (the same goes about your blog articles, guides, and case studies…)

2) Spending $0 on getting new leads from downloads. Calculate your team’s salaries and agency fees for 100h+ work hours.

3) Getting leads from downloads to add to your blog newsletter list. There are many many cheaper (and efficient) ways to do it.

Ugh, so what is the goal of investing in a trend report? Or let me rephrase… What is the goal of any marketing activity?

Getting new customers and $$$, ideally at a positive marketing ROI.

Perhaps it helps to see this graph I stole from the internet.

Getting new leads won’t matter if you’re unable to convert them into customers.

Getting lots of readers (if not gating the trend report download) won’t matter if you’re unable to convert them into customers.

Getting lots of LinkedIn engagement won’t matter if… Wait, this actually turned out alright for us. But there’s also a but here which we’ll get to later…

Just be honest with yourself here, and focus your marketing resources on things that drive growth, i.e. revenue.

This could be a trend report! This could also be paid ads or…

​

Trend report promotion strategy: the goals

Let’s start from the 2025 trend report marketing strategy we took with Sera‘s team.

As we’re in marketing experimentation stage, the project was one of our experiments. And it wasn’t just a whim: I’ve seen it work for other B2B brands over years.

So, our initial strategy was to create an attractive industry report on 2025 sales x AI trends that:

1) Helps to establish Sera as an industry thought leader in the AI SDR space.

2) Have an endless resource for 20+ future blog posts, guides, and social posts

3) Get new leads from downloads to convert into paying customers.

The third one, of course, is the most important one.

​

Trend report promotion strategy: the channels & budgets

As our ICP (ideal target customer) was decision-makers in small to mid-size B2B companies, the obvious channel for promotion was LinkedIn.

Note that you should already know who your ICP is, although you can also use an e-book promo campaign for ICP discovery. A rather expensive way to acquire the knowledge that founders should have knows from Day 1…

So, LinkedIn ads it was.

And not just LinkedIn ads but LinkedIn Lead ads.

I won’t tell you the exact budgets but we tested on several markets, and started out rather small, planning to optimise / increase budgets after initial results came it.

As to LinkedIn Lead ad campaign setup, we tested both the new Accelerate campaigns and the good old manual setup.

The Accelerate campaigns, not to speak of horrible UI trying to push AI-written ad copy – not good – this campaign type took way too long to start delivering reach. So after 24h, I changes all campaigns to regular Lead Ad campaigns.

​

As with any paid social ad channel (and display ads), the campaign’s success is 20% setup (keep it broad) and 80% creative.

As to the ad creative itself, it’s success depends 10% on text 90% on image. Nobody reads ad copy these days, unless it’s in the image.

So let’s talk about…

​

Trend report promotion strategy: the ad creatives

How to design ad visuals that convert?

The first thing I did was spy on competitors’ LinkedIn ad creatives, as well as see what well-established brands in other B2B industries are doing.

As a result, I had my desktop full of 50+ screenshots. After filtering out the best ones, we had a Figma file with 15-20 ideas to copy.

​

Good marketing isn’t about reinventing the wheel but having enough experience and knowledge (and common sense) to distinguish the best examples from stuff you know doesn’t work.

I designed 10+ different ad creatives for the campaign, and chose 6 final ones to experiment with. Below is one example.

The must-have elements I wanted to have in all ad visuals:

1) Huge text in image, immediately communicating the value and subject.

2) Download CTA with pointed arrows in the visual to draw the eye to the obvious action.

3) Sneak peek visuals of the report to convince the viewer it’s insightful and has high-quality design >> is trustworthy.

​

Trend report promotion strategy: organic social media

Of course, paid advertising isn’t the only way to promote a trend report (or blog post or e-book or newsletter, etc.)

Perhaps, it’s not even the most efficient channel…

The day we launched paid ad campaigns, I helped to create several LinkedIn posts for Sera’s team to share.

We tested LinkedIn posts with just one image, as well as a carousel-style PDF post. See the full PDF post here.

​

You’ve probably seen some LinkedIn carousel posts get hundreds of likes, comments, and shares.

However, the LinkedIn post by Sera’s CEO didn’t reach the viral effect.

Why?

Because building up a LinkedIn personal account with lots of followers and high engagement takes time. We’d only started working on this (an important project!) a few weeks ago and he had can 1,000 followers at the time.

Now, compare this with the results of the LinkedIn post I did to hail the trend report – which received so much great feedback from my network. Thx you all you know who you are! ʕ•͡-•ʔ

​

The post got 119 comments and reached 17,912 people.

I spent some good hours responding to all the comments and DMs from new and old contacts that wanted to get the trend report.

And it was absolutely worth it. As to date, at least one lead that came via this post has become a customer.

Also, another takeaway I’d like you to, well, take away: One LinkedIn post about a quality report isn’t all you can do.

You can reformat the content into 20+ posts over time, and keep the leads and reach coming.

​

Trend report promotion strategy: landing page + newsletter

Sorry peeps!

This is where I’ll have to leave off this time.

I had no intention to extend the trend report project into another newsletter but…

1) I’m on a Tartu-Tallinn train and it’s hitting the station in 10 minutes.

2) It’s Thursday evening and I’m on my way to Xmas dinner with my two most important people in the world: sister and mom.

3) I really wanted to send the newsletter this Friday morning as promised.

So after a Christmas break, I’ll be back with Part 3 that covers the full landing page + automated newsletter setup process and advice, as well as the final results and takeaways.

Have a lovely, giving, kind, surprising, restful holiday season! ☆.。.:・°☆.。.:・°

The post Industry Trend Reports PART 2: Promotion appeared first on Marketing Fix blog.

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Ever downloaded an industry trend report or e-book?

As for me, I’ve downloaded 100+ of those….

Why?

The landing page text might say things like “we polled nearly 1,800 designers and developers from four continents…” (Figma) but, of course, I never read the promo text.

Because it’s the impeccably designed cover that gets me.

Like 8 billion other human animals, I’m a visual creature. The design team at Intercom wins the beauty pageant – as well as my email address that I exchange for the PDF – the email that will receive tens of marketing newsletters over the next 3 months until, finally, I open one of them to scroll down to the almost-transparent unsubscribe link.

So why do I download trend reports and e-books? (Why do you?)

Perhaps, it’s the human curiosity, the FOMO that scares you to miss out on some very important shifts in the industry, game-changing tactics, considerably pleasant ways to waste a few hours of your working day.

Be it as it may, trend reports (and other kinds of e-books) work. Especially in enterprise-level B2B sales where their purpose isn’t as much education but…

Leaving the impression of an established, industry-leading brand.

And, naturally, collecting hundreds of potential future clients’ emails. (You already know what to do next with those…) 🌚

​

THE question is: Do trend reports lead to sales & revenue growth?

The short answer is: Yes.

But let’s rephrase the question: Are trend reports worth your marketing team’s time, effort, and the ad budget that goes into promotion?

The answer shifts to: Maybe.

It takes A LOT of time to create a trend report. The reason I know is because I just wrote, designed, and promoted one.

Together with Sera, the super promising Estonian startup building AI SDR (you should check them out!), we decided to create the 2025 Trend Report: How AI Will Change Sales Operations.

​

The joke’s on me because Sera’s team is essentially three people. And, obviously, there are no designers. (In Estonia, the first designer enters the game as ca 60th hire – hence the high success rate of local tech companies.)

So when creating the 30-page trend report, 70% of my time went into designing the thing.

As a result, I learned so much about cutting corners with Figma Library templates and unearthing legit-looking 3D icons for $80. More on this later!

As I use Toggl to track the time spent on clients’ marketing projects, I can more or less present the breakdown of a trend report creation timeline.

Time spent on creating & promoting a trend report:

• Research + discussions with team: 8 hours
• Writing the content (drafting with ChatGPT Premium): 10h
• Designing the PDF from zero: 16h
• Designing ads + social content for promotion: 6h
• Setting up ad campaigns: 1h
• Designing, copywriting, and setting up landing page + website popup: 4h
• Setting up post-download email automation: 4h
• Random back-and-forth + reporting: 6h

In total, we have… 55 hours. 🥲

And let me assure you that if there was a team of 3-5 people (plus extra stakeholders) working on the project, the time spent would be at least 5-6x higher.

Now, add to this resource pillage the paid advertising budget…

… and what your get are pretty damn expensive leads.

So you better know exactly what you’re doing when starting to work on an industry trend report.

Time for the first Moomin break.

Should you create & promote a trend report?

Here are 5 reasons not to:

1. It costs a lot of time, consider the alternative things your team could do with it.
2. You need to have industry expertise (or be great at learning fast from other industry leaders (fairly easy, tbh)).
3. Once the PDF is ready, you have to promote it. Otherwise, nobody will find or download it.
4. You need to keep milking the report for weeks if not months to justify point 1.
5. The leads that come in via download need a lot of nurturing before converting.

But then again…

Here are 10 reasons why trend reports are worth it:

1. You’ve exhausted other acquisition channels or maxed out the spending to ROAS limit.
2. You’re a new startup and want to quickly establish yourself as a thought leader in your industry.
3. You’re willing to invest in the long game, and turn leads into clients via marketing automation.
4. You’ve never tried it before – marketing is all about experimentation.
5. You want a high-quality resource to share with existing leads and include in outreach emails.
6. You invest in a long-form content piece to turn into… LinkedIn posts, webinars, blog articles, etc.
7. You gather and visualise statistics that gets picked up by other blogs and media publications, resulting in high brand reach & awareness.
8. You use the trend report as one stage in your marketing funnel, not as a one-stop acquisition channel.
9. Your marketing team is too big and has no higher-ROAS projects to focus on (cut the headcount).
10. You establish your annual trend reports as a thing people look forward to, à la Spotify Wrapped or Adobe’s Creative Trends report. And make them so fun / innovative others will do the distribution for you.

To sum it up: Trend reports are worth it if you do them well.

​

How to create an industry trend report that people want?

For better or worse – and this is my aesthetic brain typing – the content of a trend report is 20% of its attraction and efficiency. The rest is design (40%) and marketing (40%).

Here’s the zero-to-one process I followed when creating the AI x Sales trend report for Sera.

#1 Research

The obvious first step was to ask Sera’s founders what we should talk about.

Just as obvious as the founders not being marketing people so they gave me free rein. I was on my own, again.

So I went to spy on the competition, as well as the established B2B SaaS brands that I know to do great marketing (and design).

The best spy tool was LinkedIn Ads Library. For example, when I checked which ads HubSpot and Intercom are running, I quickly found their latest trend reports (set up as LinkedIn Lead ads).

To see the LinkedIn ads any brand is running, go to their Business page, navigate to Posts, and click “View ad library.”

When doing the initial research, I was looking at:

• Headlines and subjects of the trend report
• Structure of chapters and content
• Layout and design ideas
• Landing page + download form setup
• Marketing communication around the report

I created:

• A Google Docs with screenshots of various trend report ads, landing page URLs and content ideas
• A Google Drive folder with downloaded trend reports to keep referring to
• A Figma file with screenshots of good cover design + layout examples

This was about all I needed to be ready to write & design one myself.

Time for the second Moomin break.

How to write an insightful industry trend report?

Industry trend reports are essentially a grown-up version of e-books.

They’ve got to be longer, more insightful, and involve lots of statistics and charts.

Ideally, you’ve got lots of industry data – or customers to send a survey to.

As a startup, you have neither.

So I suppressed my anti-AI attitude for one day and asked ChatGPT to find statistics on relevant topics.

Like a good journalist ever, it wasn’t particularly forthcoming on its sources.

It became slightly more forthcoming once I’d upgraded to the Premium plan.

In any case, using ChatGPT, I regret to admit, saved me lots of time when writing the trend report (in a Google Doc).

Important to note: I rewrote most of the text ChatGPT provided, and prompted it to rewrite chapters 10+ times to get less jargony, repetitive, and much much more detailed and original.

After a long day’s work, I had finalised the content draft and shared it with Sera’s team for review.

And now we’re getting to my favourite part…

How to design a trend report PDF?

I began by looking for the easy options.

Canva had no good templates for e-books or other PDF formats.

Neither did the Google search for “e-book templates” yield any crop.

So I went to Figma Library and found some helpful magazine layouts.

What was most helpful was using the screenshots of other trend reports to create templates for the project. I could copy the right font size and alignment, as well as get inspiration for simple design solutions.

I’d also like to thank my past self for investing in a $80 package of fully customisable 3D icons I found in an online creative market. They really made a difference in the report looking expensive and trustworthy.

(My WIP Figma file looked a lot messier…)

Coming up with the initial style, design elements, and typography was so horribly difficult that after two hours, I gave up, thought why do I do this to myself, and decided to continue the next day.

The positive thing is that once I’d figured out the first 3 slides the next morning, it got a lot easier to design the rest via duplication and playing around with the branded colour scheme.

I’d even go as far as to say that designing the report became fun and gratifying.

By Sunday evening, I had the 30 pages designed and, once again, posted the result in our team Slack.

The founders approved.

It was time to make some final adjustments and export the PDF.

I uploaded it to Google Drive as “accessible to everyone with link” and started preparing (designing, uff!) the ad campaigns + social media (LinkedIn) posts.

How to promote a trend report?

I suppose you agree that this newsletter is becoming exhaustingly long.

So I’ll stop here, and send another dispatch on the promotion + results in the coming weeks.

While you wait, I’ve compiled a little award for those who reached the end of this soliloquy – a Figma file with some Library finds that were super helpful to me.

I also included some LinkedIn lead ad examples + good layout examples from my initial research process.

You can access the Figma file here. Sorry, this is only for newsletter subscribers!

The post I Created a 30-page Industry Trend Report. Here’s what I Learned appeared first on Marketing Fix blog.

Every Friday, you’ll get new secret-sauce 🥫🥫🥫 growth strategies, free templates, and hacks I’ve used on 50+ startups. I also share occasional feisty opinion pieces (like this one).

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Seasonality in marketing means that there’s a fluctuation between high-growth and low-growth periods. This applies to every type of business. 

There are times of the year when customers line up to buy your product… And there are months when it feels like the whole world has forgotten about you…

Once you’ve been through a couple of annual marketing strategy plannings, you’ll begin to notice a pattern: these fluctuations are happening every single year.

For example, when doing the global quarterly marketing budgets at Bolt, I realized that it didn’t make sense to invest the same amount of budget (let’s say 100% / 12 months = 8.3%) every single month throughout the year. 

To make matters even more complicated, Bolt was operating in 25+ countries and hundreds of cities. The seasonality that, in the case of ride-hailing, depends on the weather and consumer patterns, was not the same across different markets. 

The high season in the UK v.s. South Africa v.s. Australia meant very different things – and very different months of the year. And yet – not all marketing leads of international brands think in terms of local seasonality.

Perhaps it was the need to plan 25+ markets’ budgets in a few weeks’s time that led us (not just me, there was a whole team of smart growth people and data analysts behind the project) to look into ways to structure and automate our seasonal marketing planning.

While seasonality is different in every industry, the strategic tactics are still more or less universal. And that’s exactly what this guide will be about: understanding the basics of seasonal thinking and applying it in your own marketing strategy, on top of being aware of the latest marketing trends.

P.S. Seasonality does not only affect your marketing results. It should be a fundamental consideration for the entire high-level business strategy, including product and growth. And this makes the approach relevant also for the CEOs and other people with fancy C-letter job titles. 

Feel free to follow along the step-by-step flow of the guide or jump to any section that interests you most. 

1. The principles of seasonal marketing planning
2. Understanding the seasonality in your business
3. Building the toolset and structure for seasonal strategy
4. Implementing the marketing strategy in sync with seasonality
5. Revising the marketing strategy as the market changes

So, so, so… Let’s go.

1. The principles of seasonal marketing planning

The first rule of Seasonal Planning is: you do have to talk about it before the season begins. 

The right time to plan the next year’s and next quarters’ business strategy and marketing budgets is not at the end of January (as it happens to be in 95% of companies). This should be done in November-December of the previous year. At least a few weeks before the next quarter begins.

Because… What if your highest-ROI period for marketing is right at the beginning of January? What if this is the best possible time to invest in low-cost advertising while the competition is still recovering for a Q4 holiday period “hangover?” 

Or even if the best time to launch a large-scale marketing campaign is at the beginning of March, you will have to start talking to the agencies and ad real estate vendors already a few months ahead in time to get the best possible deals + have top-quality creatives ready in time. 

If you’d like to get a better overview of your marketing strategy’s performance, answer these 80 Marketing Audit Questions.

The second rule of seasonal planning: not all months are created equal.

I can’t really think of a business that would benefit from the exact same level of consumer interest throughout the year. If you look at the chart by Statista – on online retail sales value in the UK – you see that there’s always a drop in Q1 and a huge spike in Q4. 

It’s common knowledge (I suppose?) that e-commerce brands have the highest number of sales in Q3, during the period leading up to Christmas. There are the shopping holidays like Black Friday and other made-up consumer fêtes. 

So if you’re not in e-commerce, it might be a smart thing for you to not invest in paid ads during this high-competition period. 

But what if the super competitive Q3 period is also when your business is growing the most? 

While during Black Friday Meta ads cost might go up, the data by Nest Digital indicated that also the ROAS (return on ad spend)  of Meta ads was higher. So, in the end, it was worth for some advertisers to pay (say 20%) more per 1,000 ad views because there was also a (say 45%) higher buyer interest.

So what are you to make of this? 

Should you invest more marketing budget during high-competition periods of the year (especially Q3) when the cost of advertising is higher? 

If this is the time of the year when the customers’ interest in your product is high then yes, you should.

However, and this is important (!): you should not invest the same amount of budget throughout the 3-month high-growth period. You should allocate most of your budget to be spent at the beginning of that period.

As you make a big marketing investment (say running a large-scale brand marketing campaign) at the beginning of a high-growth period, you will have a heightened customer interest throughout that period. Meaning more purchases and a higher total revenue. 

If you invest an equal budget during all three months of the high season, you will lose out on the momentum that a higher initial investment would have brought. By the time the last month’s investment should begin to deliver results and turn into conversions, the customer interest has already waned.

The third rule of seasonal planning: turn up the confidence level

I’ve made this mistake myself, and I’ve seen other marketers do it: when doing seasonality-based marketing planning, the difference in marketing spend between months is often minimal.

But hey, the worst case scenario is this (done by way too many companies):

I suppose you see what is wrong with the chart… Each of these months you would spend the same amount of money.

But during some months, the investment would bring you a 200% + ROAS and in other months, you’d have a negative return on ad spend.

If you’d stop reading the article here, you’d probably go back to your marketing budget plans and do something like this: a hesitant reshuffling of the budgets between months.

But no, this is still not what you need. Even now, you will spend way too little during months with 200% + ROAS and way too much during periods of low customer interest.

What you want to achieve with seasonal marketing planning and budgeting is something at least as bold as this:

The above chart doesn’t reflect any actual businesses’ marketing budgets. But what it does reflect is the biannual marketing spend boost that far-sighted brands do at the beginning of every high season. (Yes, there are usually 2 high seasons for businesses per year. But it can vary.)

How to create an annual marketing budget that, taking into consideration the seasonality in your business, allocates the most optional percentage of budget to each month? 

Mostly, by doing two things:

• Understanding the seasonality in your business through your data, competitive research, and common sense
• Creating a planning structure and toolset that helps you to create the optional budget allocation throughout the year

And then you can just lay back and enjoy the rest of the year. Nope, just kidding! That’s when the implementation of the campaigns begins. (We’ll cover that, too.)

2. How to map the seasonality for your marketing strategy?

The most efficient way to understand seasonality in your business is to use the help of data analysts. (Not kidding this time.)

But in case you do not have an army of analysts backing you up, there are things you can do on your own. Such as…

1. Look at the month-on-month new user growth of the previous years.

This is what I do most often with the companies I’m working with. You simply ask the CEO or whoever’s in charge of the company’s growth numbers to show you the report with monthly results.

You can look at numbers like:

• New revenue per month
• New trial signups per month and cost-per-signup
• Total number of purchases per month

When looking at these numbers, take into account the external factors (e.g. covid outbreak or economic slowdown) as well as the bigger marketing campaigns and product launches that might have affected these numbers. Try to get an accurate picture of high-growth months.

2. Talk to your team

Often, the Sales team has a good overview of time periods when the customers have a heightened interest in your company’s product/service. 

Also, you can check in with the CEO or various regional team leads that have a better understanding of the seasonality in various markets. Perhaps they even already have a month-on-month report (or next year’s business budget) at hand and they can share it with you.

3. Create a spreadsheet, understand the seasonality

What you’ll need is a spreadsheet that helps you understand which months are the biggest drivers of business growth.

In the example below (dummy data), I chose the New Revenue/MRR metric to calculate the percentage of each month’s growth of the total annual growth.

Alternatively, you could use metrics like New Sales/Purchases/Subscriptions or the number of New Customers as indicators.

Now, if you would use these percentages to allocate your annual marketing budget, you’d already make a significant improvement to the ROAS. However…

You can take a step further and identify the two high-growth periods, not just months. For example, in the above report, you can see that there are two spikes: a smaller one in late spring and another in the autumn.

By allocating more marketing budget to the beginning of both these periods, you’ll get a higher return on investment as the tailwind will deliver more sales in the weeks following a big investment (e.g. a large-scale ad campaign) boost as well.

The sooner you get your marketing engine working at high speed, the longer you can reap the benefits before the high season ends with (a lump of snow).

Don’t make the marketing mistake of throttling your spend when you should be investing.

Now that you’re aware of the seasonal drops and spikes in your business growth, let’s see how you can apply this know-how and make informed strategic decisions.

3. Building the toolset and structure for seasonal strategy

Almost all marketing planning, implementation, and reporting – if you ask me – happens in Google Docs and Sheets. 

So let’s use our Google Sheet to develop a seasonal marketing planning tool.

Step 1: Enter the annual marketing budget for the next year that you’re planning to spend. 

No worries if you do not yet know the exact budget. Make a guess. The way we will built the sheet will automatically adapt to the total budget changes.

Step 2: Decide the % you want to spend each month. 

Considering that the total amount you can spend in 100%, allocate a % of this to each month. 

• Aim to spend more at the beginning of the high season
• Don’t be afraid of spending very little during the low-performance months

I personally like to add an extra row that tells me how much in % I have left to allocate – it makes it easier to play around with different scenarios.

Take some time to play around with the budget scenarios. As I did the exercise myself, I first allocated a high budget % to the two months when I’d like to invest in a big marketing campaign (or simply increased digital ad spend).

As a result, I broke the total 100% and went down to -36% when adding percentages under other months. I revised and cut down the low-gowth months’ budgets further, as well as cut the budget of the higher marketing investment in March. 

Now that you’ve got the percentages, calculate the actual €€€ budgets.

Note that this approach with spreadsheet formulas is highly flexible: if you want to re-adjust your budgets later during the year, you can do it in a few keyboard taps instead of redoing the entire chart. 

Et voilà, your next 12 months’ marketing budgets are done.

Well… Of course your budgets are not done-done. Now, you will have to allocate the budgets further between the marketing channels. 

Note how in the high-spend months, you will have to adjust the regular marketing channels’ budget % to a lower percentage to keep the budgets on reasonable levels.

Ok. Now you actually do have the annual marketing budgets more or less ready. Time to share these with the management as well as regional teams and confirm if they also think your numbers make sense.

Expect a few rounds of changes, and be adaptive to others’ feedback.

4. Implementing the marketing strategy in sync with seasonality

I’ll keep the last two sections of this guide brief. However, I’d like to share a couple of suggestions that might help you to plan, spend, and grow better.

1. Communicate the quarterly marketing budgets to your team and start preparing early.

2. If you’re planning a big marketing campaign boost during some months, start working on the ideas as well as purchasing the ad placements (offline ads, TV, etc.) early on, ideally 3 months before the campaign launch.

3. Bring the seasonality into your marketing channel selection and messaging, too. Make sure your marketing offers and promotions reflect the season and the customers’ expectations.

Point 3 in other words: people only want to drink the Pumpkin Spice Latte in wintertime.

4. If you run a large-scale marketing campaign at the beginning of a high season, make your ads match the message for the rest of the season.

(People will recognise your ads and are more likely to react on them.)

5. Don’t be afraid to start winding down on your paid marketing spend towards the end of the high season. Focus on lifecycle marketing to your newly-acquired customers.

5. Revising the marketing strategy as the market changes

Last but not least, it’s important to be flexible about your annual and quarterly marketing budgets. 

More often than not, something will happen that you do not have the agency or power to control. Like the covid outbreak, like wars… But also the trends that you could not foresee. 

Be ready to change your marketing strategy at any time. Having a budgeting sheet with automated formulas helps. A lot.

Towards the end of each quarter, check in with the management, the Product team(s), and the regional teams to see what they’ve planned for the next months. And discuss how marketing can support their goals. 

Because, after all, marketing needs to reflect the company’s overall goals, not vice versa. 

Good luck with your annual marketing planning! 

Karola

P.S. If you liked the article and aren’t yet subscribed to my weekly Marketing Fix newsletter… It’s about time to sign up here. 

The post Seasonality in Marketing – How to Plan Your 2025 Budget for Higher ROI appeared first on Marketing Fix blog.

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What are the biggest marketing trends in 2024? 

Such questions, however fickle, help us plan better, get more results, and be prepared when change happens.

Coming up are my top five predictions on how marketing will change – or continue shifting – in 2024, from macro-level changes to specific topics close to my heart. I’d appreciate hearing your thoughts and feedback, feel free to DM me on LinkedIn.

TOP 5 marketing trends in 2024:

1. Gen Z social media is now a must-have
2. Creator marketing & UGC keep growing
3. The AI hype will calm down
4. Results & quality beat scalability
5. Real sustainability over greenwashing

But first, a few words about 2023. Because, as they say, to understand the future we must look to the past.

In 2023, I worked with several tech companies, both B2C and B2B, on their growth strategies and marketing campaigns. One thing I noticed is that it’s become a lot harder to get results at a high ROI. That is, it is hard to get those good results if you rely on the best practices that worked five years ago.

I also gave an interview to TULI where I spoke at length about work-life balance and greenwashing in marketing. And launched a weekly marketing newsletter to share my thoughts & experience.

For years, there have been so many small brands popping up, investing mostly in digital ads, and competing for social media users’ attention without being original or innovative. There is also so much more noise in general: more of everything (publications, news, films, TV series, products, and so on…). 

So how to survive in 2024 as a brand? How to maintain a positive marketing ROI? 

In 2024, marketers will keep shifting their efforts towards brand marketing instead of digital performance ads that have become up to 10x more expensive than back in 2020.

In parallel, new social media opportunities keep popping up like fungi after rain. 🍄

Keep reading to learn how to navigate the biggest marketing trends of 2024 and keep growing your user base and revenue.

1.  Gen Z social media is now a must-have

In 2023, all social media giants – Meta, TikTok, and YouTube – released plenty of new formats and features to boost brands’ sales and profits.

Most of these updates were not for the ad products but organic social platforms (and ways of driving purchases through organic engagement). Meta launched Threads, TikTok added an integration with Amazon – and these are just two examples out of tens of updates.

And the changes paid off: an increasing number of young consumers are changing their browsing and purchasing habits.

For example, 57% of Gen Z users say that they prefer to use TikTok as a search engine, not Google: the social media platform’s more relatable and personal.

In their 2024 trend report, TikTok predicts that there will be a shift towards greater brand-led social change and transparency. Users want to see brands living up to their words and promises. 

A fun example of this in 2023 was the Northface campaign on TikTok. 

Meta launched Threads in July 2023 and the platform has already 100 million monthly users. Brands have been slow to move to the platform. However, even if you’re not ready to commit to posting on Threads, it would be smart to register your brand’s presence there to secure a good user name and handle.

If you’re not in B2C marketing but B2B, a similar approach applies to LinkedIn marketing. There was a huge shift in 2023 towards audience-building on LinkedIn. However, note that you should not try to build your company’s LinkedIn account but your team’s accounts. That’s because personal LinkedIn accounts’ posts have a lot higher organic reach. 

And even on LinkedIn, the less-traditional formats like carousel posts and video perform the best. You cannot rely on static images and blog post shares anymore.

When it comes to new social media features, the fastest movers and first adopters will reap the highest benefits, growth, and profit. The same applies to reacting to daily trends and viral content.

When working in a small marketing team, committing hours each day on chasing social media trends might seem like a huge waste of time. To hack the system, follow brands with active social media teams and lots of viral content to keep your hand on the pulse.

Another thing you could do is outsource your social media content creation to people who do it daily and on a professional level: content creators.

Actionable takeaways:

1. Get serious about organic social media marketing. Test new formats on top platforms.
2. Find the best-performing social channel (Reels, TikTok, LinkedIn) and post new content 3x or more per week.
3. Create less social media content but with higher virality potential. Put more effort into scrappy videos over static posts.

2. Creator marketing & UGC keep growing

Not everyone is great at filming 5 video clips per day and one of them going viral. But some people really are. 

In 2024, influencer collaborations on social media are no longer about paying €€€ for a single post or promotion. 

Rather, the leading brands are securing long-term collaborations with content creators who become something in-between a brand ambassador and a freelance content-creating team member.

Long-term content collaborations work better for many reasons:

• Creators become familiar with your product and audience, and as they what content performs best, they create more of it.
• Creators have a long-term interest in delivering results to continue the collaboration.
• You only need to brief the creators once a month, not every time you hire another influencer.

There has also been a shift towards UGC-style ads in paid digital advertising. So many Meta ads now look like selfie videos, telling how “this product changed my life.” And they actually work. So here’s also a tip for paid ads: try UGC-style video ads.

Actionable takeaways:

1. If you haven’t already, sign 2-3 TikTok, YouTube, or Reels content creators to collaborate on video content for your brand.
2. Get serious about measuring your creator collaborations’ performance and creating clear and detailed briefs for these partners.
3. Test creating UGC-style videos for social media and ads in-house with your marketing team to build that increasingly critical creative skill in your own team.

3. The AI hype will calm down

If you had to sell chocolate chip cookies, you would not use a marketing slogan saying “These cookies are made of wheat.”

However, it doesn’t seem to be a problem for marketers and founders to say that the greatest benefit of their product is: “This product is built with AI.”

In the 2nd half of 2023, I heard many stories of startup founders who talked about creating a product with AI. What product? They didn’t know – it didn’t matter as long as there was AI. I found it funny every time I heard another founder telling me that. Of course, they were bound to fail, building an AI-using product for something that already functions without it.

But this doesn’t mean that all AI-powered innovations from 2023 and beyond are useless.

It’s all about finding the right balance. 

And, in my opinion, in 2024 this balance will shift towards less AI, not more AI. As we move into the next year, everyone has an AI hangover. Even the LinkedIn influencers who grew their audience on posting about Chat GPT hacks have fallen silent. People are full of AI hacks, and still doubtful of whether it actually helps them. 

Personally – and I think using AI is a highly personal choice – I do not use AI-powered tools for content ideation, writing, nor designing creatives. Even though Canva and especially Adobe have launched advanced AI design tools, I want to have more control over my designs.

As someone said: AI’s not going to take your job. But someone who knows how to use it will. I’ll add a caveat: Neither will someone who’s completely reliant on AI ever take your job.

The main selling proposition of AI tools is “Save time.” But for what are you exactly saving that time? For watching Netflix? For using another AI tool?

There are many bad tradeoffs in using AI-powered marketing tools in order to “save time” or “accelerate results” or “personalize marketing” or “optimize smarter.”  

• You may save time with AI-powered copywriting or design tools but the results are always worse than when done by a skilled human. You also have less control over output.
• Using AI, you lose in originality. You also lose a lot of control over what’s happening in the background, being unable to tell if you’re actually getting better results or not.

And, most importantly, I never use AI for ideation or writing. Why? For the simple reason that I do not want to outsource my capability to think with my own head.

I sometimes like to use Chat GPT to suggest rephrasing in some sentences I’ve already written. I also like to use it for official emails, recommendation letters, etc. so it tells me what the format should be. I always rewrite all the text provided by the AI to make it more creative, professional, and in my own style.

Actionable takeaways:

1. If you haven’t tried the popular AI-powered marketing tools yet, give them a go: Jasper AI, Grammarly, Canva, Chat GPT itself, Userbot, Howler, etc. 
2. See if the AI tools actually save you time and give original ideas. If yes, keep it going. If not, you’ll know this was all another hype cycle.
3. Ask yourself if you’re just using the AI tools out of sheer laziness or because of the hype. It might be convenient but will also hurt your own writing, thinking, and marketing skills.

4. Results & quality beat scalability

Between 2019-2022, most brands enjoyed fast-paced growth, often from digital strategies. And the easier it seemed to launch and grow new businesses on social media, the more there appeared.

However, already in 2023, I saw many marketers struggle with keeping up the high ROI at previous scale. The ad platforms simply did not deliver as well anymore: the price went up and the ROAS (return on ad spend) dropped.

The hangover period is going to persist for at least the first half of 2024: it will be continuously hard to grow with low effort and at a high scale.

However, this doesn’t mean that you can’t grow at all. My prediction for 2024 is that the marketing teams who work hard on high-quality campaigns will get the highest results.

Less is more, again. Instead of posting 5 times a week on social media and getting 0 engagement, craft 1-2 videos per week, but make sure they have the potential to get high reach and engagement. 

The shift in Bolt’s social media strategy is a good example of keeping up with the times: back in 2019, we used to do iPhone giveaways on social media. In 2024, giveaways are passé, now it’s about quality video content, brand building, and creator collaborations.

Even the brands that have historically relied on digital performance ads are turning towards brand campaigns. Nest Commerce’s analysis of their clients’ ad spend in 2023 showed a trend towards higher brand investment.

Instead of a bit of everything, make bold bets on high-quality brand campaigns and social media posts with virality potential.

No well-performing marketing campaigns come to life in a few hours. It takes time to come up with good ideas and make them happen. Therefore, create an annual and quarterly marketing plan that helps you stay on track.

Read more about seasonal marketing planning.

Last not least, the quality-originality-authority approach also applies to content marketing and SEO. Publishing blog artiles written by AI will not get you ranking on Google.

Google’s EEAT (Experience, Expertise, Authoritativeness, and Trustworthiness) framework gives priority to content coming from long-term experts on a subject, providing original information not available anywhere else (like other blogs).

Actionable takeaways:

1. In 2024, aim for quality over quantity, results over scale. It is alright to grow slightly slower if the alternative would be not growing at all.
2. Consider shifting resources from performance to brand building, and make sure your content and creatives are aligned with this change.
3. For the first time, try planning ahead for the entire year. Understand the seasonality in your business and invest more during high-demand periods.

5. Real sustainability over greenwashing

Consumers are increasingly interested in supporting socially responsible brands.

However, if back in 2022 you could get away with saying “We’ll plant one tree for each purchase,” in 2024 people will recognize this as greenwashing.

In fact, careless tree planting does more harm than good:

• Many service providers that offer tree planting do it poorly, planting monocultures. The planting of only one tree species overlooks the complex network of interactions present in the old-growth forest ecosystems. 
• Planting a tree does not undo the carbon footprint of the product you’ve purchased. It only makes you feel better about yourself.

The only green thing to do is to not purchase new products.

However, this is not how the world works. Even though I believe in degrowth, I realize that people need jobs.

So the least you can do in 2024 is to be genuine about your sustainability efforts. Instead of outsourcing tree-planting or buying carbon credits, think about how to actually improve your production pipeline, as well as the carbon footprint of product delivery.

From sustainable packaging to minimized returns and shipping in bulk, you can make your product lifecycle greener. Offer free product repairs, sell products that are made to last long in the first place – there is so much that can be improved.

I called this 2024 marketing trend “Genuine Green” because I see honesty as a key here. Do not talk about environmental topics or make social posts on World Environment Day if for the rest of the year, you’ve done nothing to live up to your words.

Good example: IKEA creating toys out of recycled plastic and launching a cute social media campaign about it.

Bad example: Dubai Electricity and Water Authority changing the color of its logo to green without any real shift towards sustainability.

When it comes to sustainability in marketing, actions speak louder than words.

As a marketer, it is part of your job to be critical of the brand messages you put out there. 

Question the slogans and campaign ideas suggested by agencies and people ranking above you. Keep your ethics and morals high, and demand that others do the same.

Actionable takeaways:

1. If you’re still doing tree-planting and other low-commitment greenwashing campaigns (like carbon offsetting) in marketing, stop it.
2. Look for meaningful ways to make your company or products more sustainable. Then do it. And only after it’s done, talk about it.
3. If your company is not willing to contribute to social responsibility, accept it and find another marketing angle.

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Et voilà! These were my predictions on 2024 marketing trends. As always, I’d love to hear your feedback. 

If you’d like to be notified about new blog articles and get actionable marketing tips, subscribe to my weekly (Friday) newsletter.

The post 2024 Marketing Trends & Predictions appeared first on Marketing Fix blog.