What Should Your Ads Look Like? Diving into the Data on What Drives Performance

A breakdown of what creative trends ecommerce professionals should be paying attention to in 2021

Think about the last ad you saw an ad that had an image of someone’s living room. What color was the throw pillow on the couch? Was there a dog present? How many people were pictured? You might not know the answer to those questions, but the marketers who put that creative together sure do, and you better believe that they thought long and hard about each of those aspects and dove deep into some data to decide exactly what to include in the ad

Those minuscule details may seem frivolous to the naked eye, but the data proves that every decision you make in your creative process has an impact on the bottom line, and the ecommerce businesses that pay attention to the data while still putting their own spin on the creative aspect are the ones that are rising to the top.

R.J. Talyor is the founder and CEO of Pattern89, which uses A.I. and machine learning to analyze advertising and guide marketers toward the performance metrics that matter.

“Our machines, they don’t actually look at anything that’s identifiable,” Talyor said. “Instead, they’re looking at 49,000 different creative dimensions of a piece of creative and tying it to a performance metric.”

Those metrics are then passed along to a cooperative of brands and creatives, and the data is distilled into reports that marketers use to guide the decisions they make. And while all of the data is useful, and should be taken into account, Talyor does not believe in the idea of fully relying on “best practices.”

These reports are available to anyone who wants them, which means that every marketer who reads through Pattern89’s most recent offering will be working with the same advantage as everyone else who downloaded the report. So in that sense, what’s the point? Talyor said that it comes down to how a brand uses the data in its own unique way.

“If we all do the same thing, then the advantage goes away,” he admitted. “Instead, we need to think about data and creative A.I. as a recipe…. You can give Michelin star chefs the same recipe and they all make something different, even though the recipe components might be the same. I think that’s how we have to think about creative. How does our brand interpret these recipes? How do we make it distinctly ours and so our brand message shines through while also honoring those creative elements that the algorithm cares about?”

Finding your own strategic advantage in how you tell your story while still using the data available is the magic trick that every brand is trying to pull off. Talyor has advice for them all, and you can check it out on this episode of Up Next in Commerce.

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