Steal my 5 winner ads that are easiest to replicate

What's up, Marketers! This is Aazar.

This newsletter is about leveling up your paid growth marketing skills by analyzing the best brands' paid strategy, tactics, positioning, and value props.

This newsletter is divided into:

• Sharing what I've learned (this issue)

• Sometimes I share some other performance marketers’ lessons with you

• And I analyze & compare the best ads on the internet

And welcome to the 150+ new subscribers who joined us since last week’s issue. Do check out these three blogs to get value from this newsletter immediately:

• 10 Ad ideas you might not have tried

• 6 battle-tested insights to master the art of UGC operations for higher ROAS

• You need to learn creative testing from THIS brand.

In today’s newsletter, you’ll get: 

• Clarity: How to run ads that don’t look like ads

• Reduce your CAC: Find ads that deeply resonate

• No fluff: Ads that are backed up by real customers & numbers

• Find more winners: So you can launch new ads with more confidence

• More proven ad ideas: These proven ads will help you scale & iterate faster

So you can steal and apply them to your ads especially if they’re static or gifs:

This newsletter is a sample premium newsletter for all subscribers. This will be the only time I am releasing this (partially) to all free subscribers. I am finally opening the Pandora's box of my secret ads.

Thank you to those who subscribed! Extremely grateful.

This newsletter’s format will be different as if I’m reporting to you as head of marketing, so you know exactly what and why it worked.

If you’re ready to learn my behind-the-scenes trade secrets, get formats worth stealing, or want to reduce your learning curve, then, subscribe here.

Note: For a better understanding of the ads, I recommend watching them first. These ads are hosted on Atria, a platform that lets me save ads for inspiration even after the brands delete them. (They also have a 5mn + ad discovery feature where I find good ad concepts worth stealing.) I recently moved to this platform because it lets me spy on brands I love, review mining, and creative concept creation – from concept to script to brief. It’s my all-in-one creative strategy tool now.

Dear Head of Marketing,

I’m super excited to share our recent winners, what worked, why, and how we can incorporate them into our future marketing. Here are 5 winner ads that don’t look like ads:

Ad # 1  - The Reddit Question

Vertical: Local newsletter 

Conversions: 1,266+

CPA: 50% cheaper than average ad

Insights on why it worked:

• UX familiarity bias: Humans innately prefer things we're familiar with whether they're words, products, or experiences. We often try this psychological bias in our ads but this DM one stood out.

• Desire headline: Actually, I wrote this post and I was looking to gauge interest so I wrote it for me. It’s easier when you’re the customer. 

• Sub-headline: The copy started with “I struggle” and that’s the main problem I even had as an “expat” which further calls out an audience that I wanted to attract. 

• Response: The response is actually funny because it says that there is a newsletter already, which is kind of smart and feels authentic (I made it up). 

• Relevant words: City Munich + Expat + describing what the newsletter does. 

Next steps:

• Find more of these kinds of posts for all clients and replicate it

• Keep the question and description authentic, but change the answer

• Try long posts vs short Reddit posts.

Verticals it worked for: Newsletters, D2C subscriptions, D2C app, and Ecommerce non-subscriptions products.

Ad # 2 - Us vs Them

Vertical: D2C subscription

Conversions: In significant numbers, I cannot share the exact figures.

CPA: 25% cheaper than the best ad (not an average ad)

Insights on why it worked:

• Right comparison with us vs them format: Comparing the right shitty alternative and adding one more benefit: Healthier. 

• We usually compare ourselves to frozen food, but not instant food. This is another angle I tried that worked.

• Key insight: Keep finding more enemies, you’ll be surprised by the results.

Next steps:

• Use this (us vs them) format + add an offer. This brand has not used this format before.

• Find even shitter alternatives that are in the “ready-to-eat” market.

Note: Due to NDA, I can’t share many details here. 

Verticals it worked for: Newsletters, D2C subscriptions, D2C apps, and Ecommerce non-subscriptions products.

Ad # 3 – That DM you got, it’s an ad

Vertical: Education

Conversions: 1000+

CPA: 200% cheaper than the average ad

Insights on why it worked:

• Authentic DM: I didn’t change anything. I’ve tried many DMs but this was in caps that showed the excitement the message was on point.

• The ideal outcome in the second line: In education, the real outcome is the key benefit. Getting into Stanford due to a course and telling it to the founders, you realize how good of a bond there will be. Most students want these outcomes.

• UX familiarity as usual: If Barry Hott is an ugly ad guy. I’m the UX familiarity guy. It uses that bias of psychology so well. Imagine if you’re scrolling on Instagram and you see Instagram DM as an ad. It’s a scroll stopper itself. 

Next steps:

• Find customers to actually send you an Instagram DM as a testimonial. Make sure that you lean into ideal outcomes and benefits.

• Find more DM-type UX to create ads while keeping the copy the same. 

Verticals it worked for: Newsletters, D2C subscriptions, D2C apps, and Ecommerce non-subscriptions products.

If you are not a paid subscriber, you won't see the other two ads. Subscribe below to unlock the other two ads.

That’s all from this week. Hope you liked my analysis. Essentially, make ads that don’t look like ads.

In the future, I’ll also cover images that didn’t win, especially if I had hopes or expectations for them. I’ll analyze why so you can save time, and resources and steal from my winning ads.

Happy Growing with Paid Social,

Aazar Shad

Since this newsletter is free, I do it to follow my curiosity. But I’d love it if you could leave some feedback so I know if I am helping you or not.

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