christian james | ads & growth

I’m setting out to understand something: why some brands grow and others sputter and stall. Most advice makes it sound controllable — pull the right levers, ding the right bells, and growth will appear. But in reality, it’s so much messier than that.

One ad concept → 10 variations: 1️⃣ Change the hook 2️⃣ Change the first frame 3️⃣ Change the angle 4️⃣ Change the visual style 5️⃣ Change the CTA 6️⃣ Change the tone 7️⃣ Change the audience 8️⃣ Change the length 9️⃣ Add testimonials 🔟 Add urgency No excuses for running stale creative.

brand owners with tight budgets run ads for a week and say: "man, this isn't working." ads compound. Meta takes around a week to learn. after a week? that's where the results are.

@nichdo_ fuckkk

ive never seen these metrics in my life. Over 100$ spend btw

most brands skip at least one of these things and then complain that their ads aren't working?

a clearly defined testing variable (isolation) a landing page and copy optimised for sales verified by A.I. some kind of brand story native to your page

before you test your creatives, check you have: a clear customer pain point one angle per creative you approach the pain point with overdelivery on the hook + re-hook some kind of social proof native to your page a strong cta that matches awareness (cold, warm, engaged) ...

@readswithravi i feel unproductive reading from my phone

Unpopular opinion: I still prefer reading physical books over digital ones.

Men only want two things

this doesn't surprise me

good ads can't make up for a bad product good ads can't make up for a bad landing page good ads can't make up for a bad market make sure your funnels are water-tight before you start blaming your ads for wasted spend

@lorenzo_pravata this is smart af

“Create ads that don’t feel like ads”. We do exactly that. While still driving action. That’s why, most of the time we keep only the initial sections of the ad “organic”. This guarantees we hook the right customers while still selling on the spot.

CBO Advantage+ > ABO any day

@Dearme2_ put yourself in a situation where speaking is survival record yourself speaking freely, post it online every day, repeat. discomfort and suffering are the best teachers.

how much growth have you seen for your brand in the last 6 months? what's the biggest lever you pulled?

personal growth and brand growth are tightly linked you start before you’re ready you do more than you’re capable of you grow into someone who can handle it

your friend gives you £5000 to spend on ads you make a 9x return and walk away with £45k how much are you giving your friend?

founders can get so wound up in their own product vision that they forget how to talk to their avatar being passionate about your product is great, but never lose sight of how your customers think, feel about the problem you're solving, and, most importantly, how they talk.

run some ads bro like, genuinely you have nothing to lose and everything to gain

get this right, and all you'll ever have to worry about is the rest of your business don't overcomplicate things

secondly, give your ads a hard stop don't try to read the algo, you'll flop harder than a whale in a diving competition say: 'i'll stop running each ad at 2000 impressions' then, you keep your testing controlled your metrics will be easy to read and compare

one of the worst habits in paid acquisition isn't wasting spend it's thinking you're smarter than meta's algorithm let's say you start running a batch of 8 new creatives