Your ad gets about one second. That's how long people take to decide whether to stop or keep scrolling. You can pick a top offer, set up the campaign perfectly and still burn the budget: if the creative doesn't hook, money goes on impressions without clicks. The good news is that a converting creative isn't designer talent but a set of clear techniques. This guide gives you the creative formula, 16 ready hooks, a before-and-after breakdown, sizes for Facebook and TikTok, where to find ideas and ready prompts for Nano Banana and Veo you can copy and run.
What an ad creative is
A creative is the ad material the user sees: an image, a video, a banner or the ad copy. Its job is to stop people in the feed and make them tap. After that the pre-lander (an intermediate page that warms people up) and the lander (the offer page where they sign up or buy) take over.
Put simply, the creative is responsible for the click and the lander for the conversion. So a creative's key metrics are CTR and cost per click, not the number of leads. If you're just starting, read our beginner guide to traffic arbitrage first.
What a converting creative is made of
Almost every working video creative follows one structure: hook → problem → solution → call to action. For an image it's the same, just packed into one frame and one line.
The hook: the first 3 seconds
The hook is what stops the thumb. TikTok's official guidelines recommend putting the main hook in the first 6 seconds and the core proposition in the first 3. Hook types that work:
- Question: "Why can't you get in shape for summer?" Works when viewers recognise their situation.
- Pain: "Tired of paying a fee on every transfer?"
- Result: "How I learned 300 words in a month": show the outcome up front.
- Unexpected shot: an odd angle, a sharp movement, an object out of place, anything that breaks the usual feed pattern.
- UGC style: a video that looks like a normal user clip, not an ad. On TikTok and Reels these often get the best CTR.
Problem and solution
After the hook, show a problem viewers recognise and then how the offer solves it. Talk about benefits, not features: not "an app with 500 lessons" but "speak English in 15 minutes a day".
Hook bank: 16 ready openers
Use them as a base and rewrite for your offer and GEO: word-for-word copies burn out fast.
Products and e-commerce
- "I bought this for $15 and threw out three old things."
- "The thing you didn't know about and now can't live without."
- "Why does everyone at my office ask where I got this?"
- "Don't buy [product] until you've seen this."
Finance and money apps
- "How much do you lose on fees a year? Work it out in 10 seconds."
- "3 card mistakes that quietly drain your money."
- "I stopped paying account fees. Here's how."
- "Opened an account while waiting for my coffee."
Education and courses
- "15 minutes a day and you'll be speaking in a month."
- "Studied English for 5 years and couldn't say a word. Until I tried this."
- "Quiz: what's your real level?"
- "A job with no experience needed that pays in dollars: an honest look."
Mobile apps and games
- "Only 2% pass this level."
- "I thought it was boring. Five minutes later..."
- "The game you'll play tonight instead of a series."
- "Try not to smile. Bet you can't?"
Breakdown: turning a dull creative into a working one
Two illustrative examples that show exactly what changes.
Before: a banner with a language app logo and the line "The best app to learn English. 500 lessons. Download now".
What's wrong: no hook, it talks about itself instead of the person, and "best" means nothing.
After: a vertical video of someone at an airport who can't explain an address to a taxi driver; a caption "Sound familiar?"; then 3 seconds of the app screen; ending with "15 minutes a day. First lesson free".
Before: a product photo on a white background with a price.
What's wrong: it looks like a catalogue, so the feed scrolls past without looking.
After: the product in someone's hand, in a real situation where it solves a problem, with a hook line on top and one short CTA.
Call to action (CTA)
One clear action at the end: "Tap the button", "Check your price", "Take the quiz". Several CTAs at once split attention.
Types of creatives
- Static images: cheap and fast, great for testing hypotheses on Facebook and push.
- Video: the main format on TikTok, Reels and Shorts. Costlier to make but often performs better.
- Slideshows and carousels: several images in a row, handy for showing a process or steps.
- UGC: a video from an "ordinary person": a review, an unboxing, a reaction.
- Text: headlines and descriptions for search, native and Telegram.
Creative sizes for Facebook, Instagram and TikTok
The wrong format cuts reach: the platform crops the image or adds black bars. Basic sizes:
- Facebook and Instagram feed: 4:5 (1080×1350). According to Jon Loomer's breakdown, Meta recommends 4:5 rather than square for the feed.
- Reels and Stories: 9:16 (1080×1920). Keep text and faces centred: the interface covers the top and bottom.
- TikTok: vertical 9:16, at least 720p, always with sound or music. Text at 5–10 words per second, no more.
Meta dropped the "no more than 20% text on the image" rule back in 2020, but a clean image with a short line still usually beats a poster full of text.
Where to get creatives and ideas
- Spy tools. They show which creatives competitors are running and for how long. If an ad runs for weeks, it's paying off. See our top 5 spy tools and the SPY tools section. Don't copy a creative one to one: take the idea, angle and structure, and make your own execution.
- Affiliate network promo materials. Many networks provide ready creatives and landers for an offer; ask your manager. How to choose a decent network is covered here.
- Yourself, in Canva, Figma or CapCut. Templates are enough for images; CapCut with auto captions works for video.
- Freelancers and creative studios. Usually pricier, so order for a setup that has already shown profit in testing.
- AI. The fastest way to make dozens of variations for testing, covered below.
How to make creatives with AI
AI doesn't replace understanding your audience, but it removes the main limit: time. Instead of 3 creatives a day you can test 30. A working pipeline looks like this:
- Hooks and scripts: ChatGPT or Claude. Give the model the offer, GEO and audience profile and ask for 20 hooks of different types and 3 scripts of 15 seconds. Low-cost models such as Claude Haiku 5.5 are enough for this.
- Images: Nano Banana. Per Google's pricing, Nano Banana 2.1 costs about $0.034 per 1K image and renders text well, which is handy for banners. Generate several variations of each hook.
- Video: Veo. Veo 3.1 Fast in the Gemini API costs, per pricing reviews, about $0.10 per second at 720p with audio, so an 8-second clip is under a dollar. Good for short scenes and B-roll you then assemble in editing.
- Editing: CapCut. Stitch the scenes, add captions and music, and fit to 9:16.
- Testing. TikTok recommends 3–5 different creatives per ad group. The differences should be real: different hooks and angles, not the same clip with a new button colour.
Ready prompts: copy and adapt to your offer
Hooks (ChatGPT or Claude):
You are a media buyer. Offer: [what we sell]. GEO: [country], audience: [who, age, pain]. Write 20 hooks for a 9:16 video, up to 8 words each: 5 questions, 5 pain-based, 5 result-based, 5 unexpected. No promises of guaranteed results.
Image (Nano Banana):
Vertical 4:5 photo, natural light, shot on a smartphone. [Product] in a person's hand in a kitchen in the morning, close-up, background slightly blurred. Large text on top: "[hook]". Style: an ordinary social media photo, not an ad.
Video (Veo):
Vertical 9:16 video, 8 seconds, handheld. Scene: [where], a person [what they do and which problem the product solves]. The camera slowly moves in, ending on a close-up of the product. Natural room sound.
Tip: generate 3–4 variations per prompt and change one thing at a time (background, angle or hook). That's the fastest way to see what actually worked.
A note on AI content. Images and videos from Google and OpenAI models carry an invisible watermark that anyone can now check; see our news on SynthID Detector. TikTok and Meta label AI content, and platforms require realistic AI videos to be disclosed. Use AI for scenes, backgrounds and visuals, but don't pass generated people off as real customers.
7 beginner mistakes with creatives
- Logo and brand name in the first frame. People don't care who you are; they care what they get.
- Small text or text at the edge of the frame. On a phone it's unreadable or hidden by the interface.
- One creative for the whole campaign. Nothing to compare, so you can't tell what works.
- Testing "the same thing in different colours". Change the angle and the hook, not the button shade.
- Video without sound on TikTok. The platform explicitly recommends sound or music.
- The creative promises one thing, the lander another. You get clicks but no leads, and the platform may reject the ad.
- Killing it too early. 50 impressions tell you nothing; let the creative gather data.
What moderation will reject
The most common reasons creatives get rejected and accounts get into trouble:
- fake reviews and "real stories" that never happened;
- celebrities and brands that haven't agreed to the ad;
- "before/after" photos and promises of guaranteed results;
- shocking content and clickbait unrelated to the offer;
- a mismatch between creative and lander: promising one thing and delivering another.
An honest creative lives longer and doesn't drag your account toward a ban. For more on how platforms judge accounts, see our article on Facebook Ads campaign structure.
How to test creatives and see what works
- CTR (click-through rate): the share of impressions that led to a click. The creative's main metric.
- Hook rate: the share of viewers who watched to at least the 3rd second. Low means the hook doesn't work.
- Hold rate: how many watched to the middle or the end. Low with a good hook means the middle sags.
- CPC and CR: cost per click and lander conversion. If CTR is high but there are no leads, the problem is usually the lander or a creative–offer mismatch.
A practical rule many buyers use: let a creative spend at least one or two target-action costs before judging it. Scale the creative that beats others on CTR and cost per lead, and make new variations of it. TikTok advises refreshing creatives when results decline steadily and adding new ones to an existing ad group rather than creating a new one.
Why creative diversity matters more than before: Meta moved ad retrieval to a machine learning system called Andromeda that decides which ad to show to which person. Different creatives find different audiences, so 5 distinct angles usually beat 5 copies of one.
If you run short-form video, see our guides TikTok UBT for beginners and how to get on the TikTok For You page.
Pre-launch checklist
FAQ
How many creatives do I need for a test?
At least 3–5 different creatives per ad group, as TikTok recommends; it's a good benchmark for Facebook too. They should differ in angle and hook, not in small details.
Where can a beginner get creatives for free?
Ask the affiliate network for promo materials, look for ideas in spy tools with free trials and build your own variations in Canva or CapCut on free plans.
Can I make creatives with AI?
Yes. ChatGPT or Claude write hooks and scripts, Nano Banana makes images and Veo makes video. Just don't pass generated people off as real customers, and label AI content where the platform requires it.
How do I know a creative has burned out?
CTR drops for several days in a row while cost per click and per lead rise with the same settings. That's the signal to make new variations.
What size should a Facebook creative be?
4:5 (1080×1350) for the feed and 9:16 (1080×1920) for Reels and Stories. A 1:1 square (1080×1080) works almost anywhere if you have nothing else.
Sources: TikTok Ads — Creative best practices, Jon Loomer — Meta aspect ratios, Google Gemini API pricing, Veo pricing, Meta Engineering — Andromeda.
