Ad Creatives
The Platform Picks
the Winner. You Feed It.
Meta now makes most of the targeting decisions on its own. What it still needs from you is enough genuinely different creative to choose between, and that is where most accounts run dry long before they run out of budget.
The Problem
Creative Is the Constraint
Now, Not Targeting
This changed relatively recently, and a lot of accounts are still set up for the world before it.
Paid social used to reward whoever built the cleverest audiences. Advantage+ and its equivalents took most of those decisions in-house, which means the lever that used to separate a good account from an average one has largely been removed. What is left is the input: how many genuinely different pieces of creative the system has to test.
That is a production problem rather than a marketing one, and it is the reason accounts stall while nothing else has changed. The audience did not dry up. The same three images stopped surprising anybody, and there was nothing queued behind them.
The Work
What Actually
Gets Produced
Product imagery generated and edited into ad-ready variations, on a cycle rather than as a one-off batch.
01
Start from the real product
Your own product photography is the source. Generation is used to place it in new settings, contexts and formats, not to invent a product that does not exist. That distinction is the whole basis of doing this responsibly.
02
Build variations that differ meaningfully
Ten crops of the same image is not ten creatives, and the system learns nothing from testing them. Different setting, different framing, different first second, different claim on screen. Variation has to be the kind the algorithm can tell apart.
03
Size for the placement
Feed, Stories, Reels and Shopping all want different shapes. Delivering one aspect ratio and letting the platform crop is how text ends up cut in half and product ends up out of frame, and it is a large share of why some placements quietly underperform.
04
Keep a queue
The point is the cadence rather than any individual asset. New concepts arrive on a regular cycle so there is always something ready when the current set fatigues, instead of a scramble after results have already dropped.
The Limits
What Generated Imagery
Must Not Be Used For
Worth stating plainly, because it is where this goes wrong and because most people selling it do not mention it.
Generated imagery must not misrepresent what arrives in the box. Not the colour, not the size, not the material, not a feature the product does not have. That is a policy problem on both ad platforms, and long before anyone enforces it, it is a returns and chargeback problem that costs more than the creative ever earned.
So the working rule is that generation changes the context and never the product. A sofa can be placed in a room it was never photographed in. It cannot be given a different fabric. If a concept needs the product to look like something it is not, the answer is a real photograph, and saying so is cheaper than the alternative.
Some categories should not use generated imagery at all. Anything where the buyer is judging fine detail, and anything regulated, is safer shot conventionally.
Fit
Who This Is
And Is Not For
Hire someone else if
- You need a full production shoot with models and a set, which is a studio
- Your product must be judged on fine detail that generation cannot represent honestly
- You are in a regulated category where imagery is controlled
- You want one hero asset rather than a steady supply of them
This works if
- You are running paid social and creative is what you keep running out of
- You have decent product photography to work from
- You want a cadence rather than a campaign, because fatigue is continuous
- You would rather test volume than agonise over one perfect asset
Questions
Questions About
Ad Creative
If yours is not here, ask it on the call.
What does ad creative production cost?
It sits inside the retainer rather than being sold as a separate line. Channel Management starts at $1,500 a month, Growth Partner at $4,000 and Fractional CMO at $7,000. Full detail is in the pricing section on this page.
Is this AI images or real photography?
Both, and in that order. Your real product photography is the source, and generation is used to place it in new settings, framings and formats. Generation changes the context around the product, never the product itself.
Will the ads look obviously AI generated?
That is the thing to avoid, and it is mostly a question of restraint rather than of tools. Generated backgrounds that are trying too hard are more recognisable than plain ones, and the giveaway is usually in hands, text and reflections, which is why those get checked by eye rather than trusted.
How much creative does an account actually need?
More than most brands produce and less than agencies selling volume suggest. The honest answer is that the account tells you: when results decay while budget, audience and landing page are unchanged, the queue was too short. That is the signal worth watching rather than a number set in advance.
Can this be used for Google as well?
Yes, for Performance Max and Demand Gen, which both consume creative in a similar way. It is built for Meta first because that is where fatigue moves fastest and where the system depends on having options.
Do I own the creative?
Yes. The assets are yours, including the source files, and they stay yours if we stop working together.
Pricing
What Does It Cost
to Work Together?
Published, so you can rule me in or out without booking a call.
Channel Management
Starting at $1,500 /month
You own the plan. I run the channels.
- Campaign build and management
- Conversion tracking and reporting
- Monthly performance call
- SEO is not included at this tier
- Additional channels +$500 each
- Minimum ad spend $5,000/month
- 6 month commitment
Most Popular
Growth Partner
Starting at $4,000 /month
I own paid strategy end to end.
- Everything in Channel Management
- Every channel included, priced as one
- SEO included: technical, on-page and content
- Channel mix and budget allocation
- Creative direction and briefs
- Quarterly CRO roadmap
- 25 hours a month included
- Minimum ad spend $10,000/month
- 3 months, then month to month
Fractional CMO
Starting at $7,000 /month
I own the whole marketing function.
- Everything in Growth Partner
- Email, SEO and site direction
- Contractor sourcing and management
- Quarterly planning with you
- 40 hours a month included
- Minimum ad spend $20,000/month
- 6 month commitment
Let’s Talk
Book a free 30 minute call. I will tell you what I would do with your accounts, whether or not you hire me.
Book a Discovery Call
30-minute strategy session
Prefer to Reach Out Directly?
Happy to talk it through over email or a quick call. I usually reply within a few hours on weekdays.
- greg@digitalkarbon.com
- Massachusetts • Nationwide
Who You Talk To
Me, Every Time
What to Expect
- 30 minutes with me, not a salesperson
- What I would change in your account first
- No pitch deck, no obligation