Your top-of-funnel ads might be driving more of your conversions than you realize. Let us audit your account and show you what’s really working.
Talk to us at: https://www.tiereleven.com/apply
You can’t just look at your top-converting ad and call it a day anymore. That ad probably isn’t doing what you think it’s doing. So if you’ve been asking “which ad is actually working,” you’re asking the wrong question, and it’s costing you.
Thomas Mcnaught joins me again to break down how Meta’s Andromeda update has completely rewritten the rules of creative performance. We get into how creative diversification has replaced targeting, how hook rate, hold rate, and watch time reveal the real story behind your results, and why switching off an ad with zero last-click conversions is a bad decision.
We also get into why leaving ads untouched for three to four weeks beats constant tinkering, and how AI-generated creative has produced some of the best-performing ads we’ve seen. If you manage or outsource Meta ad spend, this episode will change how you read your reports.
In this episode:
- Why hook rate and hold rate matter more than last-click conversions
- How Meta Andromeda shifted targeting from audiences to creative
- Why letting ads run untouched for weeks outperforms constant optimization
- How to identify assisting ads that quietly drive conversions
- The role of creative diversification in lowering CPMs
- What the “hits” metric reveals about top-performing creative
- Why image ads often get the credit videos actually earned
- Why optimizing for lead quality beats optimizing for lead volume
- How to build a monthly creative performance report
Mentioned in the Episode:
Watch the Previous Episode with Thomas Mcnaught: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AMixZJvJvCY
Join Ralph Burns and John Moran every Friday for The Ad Lab Live: https://www.youtube.com/@Tier11/streams
Listen to this episode on your favorite podcast channel:
Follow and listen on Apple: https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/perpetual-traffic/id1022441491
Follow and listen on Spotify:
https://open.spotify.com/show/59lhtIWHw1XXsRmT5HBAuK
Subscribe and watch on YouTube:
https://www.youtube.com/@perpetual_traffic?sub_confirmation=1
Connect with Thomas Mcnaught:
- Website: https://www.thomasmcnaught.com/
Connect with Ralph Burns:
- LinkedIn – https://www.linkedin.com/in/ralphburns
- Instagram – https://www.instagram.com/ralphhburns/
- Hire Tier 11 – https://www.tiereleven.com/apply-now
Thanks so much for joining us this week. Want to subscribe to Perpetual Traffic?
Have some feedback you’d like to share? Connect with us on Apple Podcasts and leave us a review!
READ THE TRANSCRIPT:
Why Your Best-Performing Ad Might Be the One Getting Zero Conversions
00:00:00:00 – 00:00:06:16
Thomas
You can’t just say, for example, 31% is a good hook rate or a good hold rate because products are different, businesses are different.
00:00:06:18 – 00:00:31:10
Ralph
If you’ve been trying desperately to answer the age old question which ad works for converting and for performance for growing my business, well, I’ve seen no media buyer on the planet figure this out until now. And that’s what today’s show is all about, because the way you’re measuring creative and ad performance is probably wrong. We’re going to teach you the right way how to do it on today’s show.
00:00:33:04 – 00:00:54:00
Ralph
Hello, and welcome to the Perpetual Traffic Podcast. This is your host, Ralph Burns, founder and CEO of tier 11. If that’s you, if you’re having that issue and that’s the question I get all the time. And our guest host coming back for the second time in just a month, we have coerced him, to come back on a regular basis here.
00:00:54:01 – 00:01:13:10
Ralph
The question that he gets all the time is which ad is the one that’s converting best for me, which is the one that’s working? Which ads are working? We are working. I’m recording that. If you’re watching this over our YouTube channel, which, by the way, you should subscribe to that, a perpetual traffic.com/youtube, because we’re going to be doing some screen shares here today.
00:01:13:12 – 00:01:31:06
Ralph
We’re going to answer that question because it’s not one ad it used to be. We would run one video ad for 11 minutes and that would do everything. We would have one ad that made the difference for all of our clients. Well, that is like so 2016, 2017, even 2021.
00:01:31:08 – 00:01:32:15
Thomas
To be honest.
00:01:32:15 – 00:02:03:12
Ralph
I mean, today it’s all about the channels at the top of funnel and how you can leverage the algorithm the best way possible. And it’s not just by conversions. And today we have the solution to that question with our growth strategy at tier 11, Thomas McNaught coming back for a second time with his Scottish accent. Hopefully we were able to understand him on the first one, not we’ll leave like, we might need to do some, what is it?
00:02:03:18 – 00:02:16:20
Ralph
That, transcription. What’s the thing at the bottom? Let’s say it was subtitles for Thomas every now and then. So he goes full Scott on. Yeah. But anyway, welcome back to Perpetual Traffic, Thomas.
00:02:16:22 – 00:02:32:11
Thomas
Yeah. Thank you for having me. Yeah. And we’ve got some good information today, some stuff that probably a lot of people had never seen. And more up to date ways of looking at things. So yeah. Super. Excited to show you some of the stuff that we’ve been working on. I think it’s going to be very useful to a lot of people.
00:02:32:13 – 00:02:54:17
Ralph
You and Ricardo. I always have to be your guys hype man on this show, because not only am I proud of all the stuff that we’re doing, but some of the things that you’re doing here, like we talked about in the intro, I haven’t seen anywhere on the internet, anywhere, like, you know, yeah, your feed on Instagram is filled with all the media buyers, all the stuff that we’re going to be talking about here today.
00:02:54:17 – 00:03:15:08
Ralph
I haven’t seen anybody measuring the effectiveness of ads the way that our team does right now. And it’s not necessarily the ad that has the most conversions per se. I mean, yes, that last click is usually like the image ad or sort of the ad at the bottom of the funnel, but that’s not necessarily the thing that works in total.
00:03:15:08 – 00:03:16:21
Ralph
And I think Ricardo actually used.
00:03:16:21 – 00:03:19:11
Thomas
This on a call. It was last week was really.
00:03:19:12 – 00:03:38:22
Ralph
It was really proud of him. You know, if you drink 12 beers, is it the first beer? This is the 12th over here that gets you drunk? I have no idea. It’s probably all of them. You know what I mean? The fact that he used it, I don’t even think he drinks was just absolutely hysterical. And that’s kind of how things work right now with Meta Andromeda.
00:03:38:22 – 00:03:47:06
Ralph
So, like, lay the goods on us here. Like, what are you seeing when people ask you that question? Like, oh, which ad is working? Because it’s a complicated answer.
00:03:47:06 – 00:04:03:17
Thomas
Yeah, exactly. And the way exactly like you explained, the way we previously looked at things is we look at the basically the main KPI on the account where I say, if you’re going for leads, are you for going for purchases? You’d obviously be looking at a couple of things. In that case, it would be your volume and your cost for each one of those.
00:04:03:19 – 00:04:28:03
Thomas
But now obviously with the Andromeda set up, things have changed drastically. So now it becomes a lot more about how everything is working together and your marketing messaging and how those ads are basically impacting the overall strategy, rather than just like saying, hey, well, that’s one I’d like scale all the budget for that, which is the way I’ve scaled millions of dollars to accounts previously before, but that way just it seems to break things now.
00:04:28:05 – 00:04:53:08
Thomas
So yeah, we’re basically now looking at it in a whole, different way. And that’s what we’ve kind of been working out over the last couple of weeks. And with our clients that we’re working on, how can we show this with the changes and, the create up diversification? We have the messaging strategies that were implement, and we’ve came up with some new sort of reporting style which will be rolling out to more clients as we obviously, finalize everything.
00:04:53:10 – 00:05:04:05
Thomas
But yeah, we can share that on this call and run through together and we can basically, answer any questions on that that we might have as well that people may want to know as well. And then,
00:05:04:07 – 00:05:28:14
Ralph
Yeah. Yeah, absolutely. Let’s, let’s definitely, screen share some of the reporting that you’ve seen before we get to that. Like, I mean, just sort of explain to, to people maybe this is the first time that they’re hearing this. I mean, we obviously have a lot of longtime listeners who’ve been listening to the show watching this show over on our YouTube channel, which, by the way, perpetual traffic.com/youtube, definitely subscribe over there.
00:05:28:16 – 00:05:51:17
Ralph
Like explain sort of how Andromeda has changed the game. And I know for me and you, it’s kind of like, oh, this is old news. Well, it’s actually still kind of new news because I think a lot of people still haven’t gotten it. And when I get on discovery calls or calls, you know, with our sales department during the week, I come across this, this lack of understanding of how things work in 2026.
00:05:51:17 – 00:06:04:19
Ralph
So let me just explain that in a general sense. And then we can kind of get into some of the more specific, measurements as well as metrics that you look for or measure performance.
00:06:04:21 – 00:06:26:07
Thomas
Yeah. So with the Andromeda update, everything is became a lot more based around the algorithm and consolidating a lot of stuff rather than using specific targets and breaking things out the way that you would use to, do it even maybe like a couple of years ago, we would be doing the same thing, and it still comes up on client conversations like, can we break out for example, a 180 day audience?
00:06:26:07 – 00:06:48:19
Thomas
Or can we try like, retargeting audience? But in reality now with, Andromeda, it does it all for you. And it’s actually quite and powerful. I know in the past you would see some things coming through from from Mia. And you think that is just doesn’t work like that is not good. But in this case, it seems to be doing a lot better, at least on the majority of the accounts that we are working on.
00:06:48:21 – 00:07:11:09
Thomas
So now, we basically leave a lot of the targeting broad on, the asset level rather than it and being, for example, entry space lookalike based or on any other audience that you want on that. And then we do the messaging in the targeting through the creative. And that’s because Andromeda sees that it can read the creative, it can see how it should be targeting.
00:07:11:10 – 00:07:29:06
Thomas
It can see if the creatives a diversified across, each one that you’re putting in there. So so it basically looks for if something is similar and if something is similar, you’ll probably find if you look at your article just now, if you’re running it yourself or even if you’ve got another agency running their check or your spend is going, that’s one of the key metrics that we actually want to look at.
00:07:29:06 – 00:07:48:17
Thomas
Where does that spend actually getting directed? And you may find there are 20 creatives you may see for example, there’s only slight changes in those creatives and they don’t get the spend. And that’s probably caused Andromeda in the gym. And updates are basically seen that these are two similar. And that’s what you need to try and change things.
00:07:48:19 – 00:08:02:16
Thomas
So yeah, the target and is done for the creative mainly. And what we’re seeing in the creative, what we’re showing and how where the was a find that message or that video format statics or even carousels as well. So that’s the sort of split that we’re, we’re looking at.
00:08:02:18 – 00:08:29:00
Ralph
So explain to me the difference between how you used to manage these types of campaigns. This is really like for VP of marketing and CMO or managing their teams or even overseeing an agency doing this for them. There’s been such a dramatic shift, and especially within the last six months, I mean, obviously, John and I talk about this every single Friday over on the tier 11 ad lib, 230 eastern over on our YouTube channel.
00:08:29:00 – 00:08:57:09
Ralph
Check that out. That’s where we test a lot of these strategies. And then we operationalize them inside tier 11 for clients. And this is what we’re now doing. But the shift really happened within the last two years or so because we still have. And I’m thinking of one client in particular, who is saying, well, let’s break it this all down by state or let’s break this all down by, you know, specific targeting like that is no longer relevant.
00:08:57:09 – 00:09:22:14
Ralph
And it’s really hard for people to understand that, especially if they’ve been schooled on, hey, Facebook and Meta and even Google for that matter is a targeting machine. It’s the exact opposite is now the creative actually creates the targeting. So breaking down hundreds of into hundreds of campaigns is what we used to do. We used to do like several hundred campaigns back in like the Michigan Method days.
00:09:22:14 – 00:09:44:07
Ralph
And then we would do the ecom ad amplifier and break everything up by retargeting. None of that matters now. But explain to me, like what that shift was for you. And when you sort of started seeing like, I need to let the platform itself do the work that I used to have to do and maybe explain that shift from your perspective.
00:09:44:09 – 00:10:00:18
Thomas
Yeah, yeah. It’s like exact same as you said. There was all these methods, like carpet bomb method was one where you make like 100 ad sets. You see, if it goes to the CPA level, like for example, if you’ve got target, CPA offered it all, then you kill the ad set with rules. There was all these crazy things that you would get away with.
00:10:00:18 – 00:10:24:02
Thomas
But I guess like the Golden Rule was just think of what the goal, as with May other, the goal is to keep people on the platform. Obviously they want their revenue from ad spend, but if people don’t stay in these platforms and they’re not getting a good experience through the ads, which basically could mean that just someone hammering the same ad constantly at them, and I’ve never seen any other diversification in that message or showing a different way of saying the same thing.
00:10:24:02 – 00:10:44:15
Thomas
I guess that’s going to be a bad experience, which is going to push people off of the platform, which I does not want, which is part of the whole algorithm’s purpose. Right. So the way we would do things before is, exactly what we said there. We would break things out. It campaigns, you know, we break out any specific custom audiences, we’d have a testing campaign, they’d maybe have a retargeting campaign in there.
00:10:44:20 – 00:11:03:18
Thomas
And we constantly shift new creatives, enter that and and leave and basically test that way. No. What I’ve found again, this is maybe in the last six months or so, actually just pulling in a bunch of creatives and allowing them to spend for even like 3 to 4 weeks before we touch anything, seems to be getting the best results.
00:11:03:19 – 00:11:24:14
Thomas
And trust me, I was a big advocate on putting new creatives in like, we need more creatives. I was probably the water was worst buyer at that. Like I would say, we need more. We need more stuff in. So yeah, I would now say that it’s more important to make your creatives diversified and then leave them for enough time to actually let the algorithm lay on them.
00:11:24:20 – 00:11:45:10
Thomas
And it will then the sort of sequencing of showing them to different audiences as well. And then we’ve found that week on week, the course in results that we are looking to get are coming, though not only on the platform side, but actually on the back end where the marginal like where the customer’s revenue is being tracked, where the sales are being tracked, which is the most important metric outside of the platforms.
00:11:45:10 – 00:12:10:22
Ralph
That’s a huge, huge shift because, I mean, we actually had, I think when you were first starting in tier 11, way back when we had an SOP about like had us pause ads and ads that have tons of spend, but no conversions. Turn those off. Now it doesn’t really matter. Like because the algorithm is so good now, back then, this is only 2 or 3 years ago.
00:12:10:22 – 00:12:46:13
Ralph
Keep in mind, like back then, meta would say, oh well, we know what we’re doing because what we’re doing is we’re warming up those audiences to eventually convert on another ad. But that wasn’t really the case. I don’t think the algorithm was so good back then that we could let meta do that. And to to your point, and this is a huge point if you missed, you know, based on the Scottish translation, is let them spend and don’t touch them for 3 to 4 weeks like that was that is so counterintuitive to everything that we always talked about.
00:12:46:13 – 00:13:12:23
Ralph
And what I guarantee you, 90% of people that are listening to this right now think, and how are they respond and how they behave inside ads manager. So and I know like we always like to touch stuff like, you know I was like, oh well, you know we’re tinkering here, tinkering there. But it’s literally like you’ve learned through experience all at the algorithm do it’s work and hands off, which is hard from a client standpoint because they’re like, Thomas, what the hell are you doing?
00:13:13:00 – 00:13:19:17
Ralph
But yeah, like, talk about that shift, because I think that’s a really important thing for people to remember.
00:13:19:19 – 00:13:34:21
Thomas
Yeah. And like you say this, you have clients who basically want no new ads and they’re like, we’ve got these weigh in. But there’s one client in particular I would I won’t mention them, but their service based business and they are crushing that just now. And we have not we’ve got we’ve obviously got a bunch of new ads.
00:13:34:21 – 00:13:52:16
Thomas
We’ve got a thing called an, holding campaign, but we just put all of our ad builds and then we maybe move them into campaigns later if we want to do that. Just so there are certain basically on the wagon ready to go and when we need them. But yeah, like because results are so good. Golden rule is don’t touch it.
00:13:52:16 – 00:14:09:23
Thomas
You know, like we need to get the eyes and well, why do we need to get ads? And your costs are coming down week on week. Just leave it, let it do its thing until we really need to, until we really need those ads. When results that basically, maybe going in the wrong direction rather than just putting stuff in for the sake of it.
00:14:10:01 – 00:14:43:06
Ralph
Right? Yeah. And I, I think we’ve talked about this a lot on the show about you constantly need to be creating more creative for diversification purposes. But there are some cases where the ads in the ads themselves, the creatives, the stuff that you actually have live is doing really well. And cost per acquisition, cost per lead, cost per application, fill cost per registration, cost per new patient is starting to decrease.
00:14:43:08 – 00:15:04:06
Ralph
And you don’t want to introduce new creatives sort of upset the applecart in some cases, but you’ve got it in reserve because we all know every creative does have a finite life span, which is interesting because John and I did a show last week and the ad lab was like, yeah, well, a year ago we had this great ad and it started to burn out and now I reintroduced it.
00:15:04:07 – 00:15:23:20
Ralph
Now it’s crushing again. So it’s like what’s old kind of is new again in some cases. So yeah, I think that’s a really important point. And it’s counterintuitive in a lot of ways because people always want to be touch and stuff, and clients want you to be touch and stuff, but we got to do what’s best for them, which is ultimately get to the goal.
00:15:23:22 – 00:15:49:19
Thomas
Yeah, exactly. And then also we’re still looking at things, you know, it’s not like just put an ad in, leave it. Well looking at the things like the whole greats, the hook rates, the watch rates on the videos, click through rates obviously on your emojis. And then obviously your key metrics do come in and but again these these I guess lower funnel metrics inside of the ad platform are super important now because that’s what rewards the overall CPMs and basically engagement the ads get.
00:15:49:19 – 00:16:06:03
Thomas
And which then obviously gets you the lower cost per results, because May I basically sees it as something that’s giving someone a good experience. And it goes back to that rule of as it getting a good experience, then they’re going to basically not be annoyed by your ad more than anything. So may I see that as a good thing?
00:16:06:05 – 00:16:29:19
Ralph
Yeah, absolutely. So well, let’s get into a screen share here. We can kind of show some of these secondary metrics. And I think, you know, as Thomas is repairing that screen share I think it’s a really important thing to remember. When you’re advertising on a platform, you always have to keep in mind what the platform wants. Meta wants people to stay on platform.
00:16:29:19 – 00:17:00:19
Ralph
They don’t want to annoy their users because they want their users to continue to grow month over month, week over week. And annoyed users don’t click on ads if you’re showing somebody the same ad 27 times, they’re going to get pissed off and that’s a bad experience. So the algorithm for advertising plays directly into what meta wants. And if you can create diversity in your creative, lots of different types of messaging.
00:17:00:19 – 00:17:19:11
Ralph
And we’ll talk about that here and we’ll even show it. We’re starting to show it right now. And you’re getting conversions for the business. Two things. You’re winning, the clients winning. And meta is winning. And I think you have to think about this as a win win win scenario. And it makes complete sense because the technology has advanced to the point.
00:17:19:11 – 00:17:39:22
Ralph
Now medic knows exactly which ad to show to which customer at which time, which is unbelievable. They’ve always said that they wanted to do that, but now it’s actually the case. So let’s get into some of those metrics that you look at, which are sort of leading metrics in a lot of cases and, will ultimately lead to performance.
00:17:40:00 – 00:17:58:18
Thomas
So I’m obviously sharing my screen here, and this is something that we’ve been working on for the last few weeks. Again, rolling out to all of our clients as we make the changes on the reports. But this is a month to deport a part of the monthly report that we do. And this section is like the tree of performance, on the account for the last month, in this case, July.
00:17:58:20 – 00:18:19:07
Thomas
So, yeah, before what we’d look at is exactly what you said, maybe the key metrics. So if you’re trying to get, for example, leads, which in this case we were you would look at your cost per leads and your results on the ad level. But that doesn’t tell you the bigger picture, which again, the new algorithm, update from May, is actually pushing.
00:18:19:09 – 00:18:36:13
Thomas
We now need to look at things like your ho, create your hole rates and how the creatives are playing into the whole picture, rather than just saying, hey, that’s AD is crushing it, because that’s a mistake that you can make by switching off things that are actually contributing to that ad. If you think like yourself, this is the way that I always look at things that I’m trying to figure out.
00:18:36:13 – 00:18:52:14
Thomas
A way of looking at the best approach is how do you scroll through your phone? You know, like, when was the last time you really just seen one ad and clicked on it and then bought directly? A lot of the times, what you’re finding is when you’re scrolling through, maybe you see an image and that could be like, let’s say you’re interested in protein.
00:18:52:14 – 00:19:13:12
Thomas
For example, a supplement, you see an image on the protein, then you may keep scrolling. Then the next day you maybe see a video and you actually watch the video. Then you might go to that Instagram page and you see you’re kind of paint in this picture where you’re moving through different media and different ads, essentially to then get to the end result rather than just saying, hey, that’s one ad contributed to this.
00:19:13:14 – 00:19:39:06
Thomas
So that’s where you need to look at these other metrics, which is why we’ve broken the report down like this. So we still look at the key metrics. And there will be a few things built out on this, slide deck here. But over here we’ve got basically this is the lead count and how we’re looking at this, in terms of clear performance, as we’re not looking at every key of the reason, we don’t want to look at every creatives because they’re not equal for July.
00:19:39:07 – 00:19:59:13
Thomas
The why is that? Because they all don’t have the same amount of spend. And when you don’t have the same amount of spend, you can’t measure the results the same way. For example, you can have an ad that spent $500 and let’s say your create is for example, 30%, which is decent. But then you could have an ad that spent only $10, but the hook rate, as for example, 60%.
00:19:59:15 – 00:20:19:08
Thomas
That’s not the same because I’ve not had the same amount of spend towards them. So that’s just the one caveat to this. So what we look at as your top 25% of spend across your images and your videos and ads. So if you had, for example, 100 ads running, you would have 25% of the videos and then 25% of the statics.
00:20:19:13 – 00:20:20:18
Thomas
That. Does that make sense so far?
00:20:20:20 – 00:20:44:14
Ralph
Yeah it does. And I think, you know once again Scottish translation here. Hook rate and hold rate and average watch time. Three really really important metrics. And what you’re seeing here on the screen. If you’re not watching this on YouTube you should check it out at perpetual traffic.com/youtube. You’re looking at an average hook rate of 31%, a hold rate of 13%, an average watch time of almost eight seconds.
00:20:44:16 – 00:20:53:19
Ralph
So explain those three metrics and where they sort of rank as far as like how you would, you know, assess them from a performance standpoint.
00:20:53:23 – 00:21:13:21
Thomas
Yeah. So the way that we would look at this as we would look at the averages here, and I’ll show you on the next slide is another slide here, which basically breaks down the creatives, which we’ll jump to in a second. It’s you can’t just say, for example, 31% is a good hook rate or a good hold rate because products are different, businesses are different, you know, and this is another conversation where we have the clients.
00:21:13:21 – 00:21:30:19
Thomas
A lot of times we ask, well, what is a good, what is a good? How good or what is a good? You know, what it’s like is it’s not as simple as that because your product could be could be different from other products that we’re obviously running. So how are we like to look at it as is another report as well, which is just the inside of the platform.
00:21:30:22 – 00:21:51:23
Thomas
We just look at a monthly breakdown. And this is for the account as a whole. And we look at your averages across all of these metrics as well. So for example, let’s say in July and you had a 20% average hook rate, but then in August maybe a jumped up to 25%. We know that this stuff that we are doing in that account as averages is actually going in the right direction.
00:21:52:01 – 00:22:03:02
Thomas
So that’s how I’m kind of judging it is account based rather than just saying, hey, look, we’re getting amazing how great at 25%. But it’s it’s kind of relevant to what you’re trying to promote and sale with the ads, you know?
00:22:03:04 – 00:22:21:13
Ralph
Right. Right. I mean, there’s a lot of factors in there. And I think when John and I talk about this on those Friday calls is we is like a benchmark for hook rate and hold rate. And I think that’s a it’s a variable number. I think the way that you’re describing it here is it really depends whether or not those hook and hold rates are good.
00:22:21:13 – 00:22:42:06
Ralph
I mean overall 31% and 13% are in the standard sort of way of measuring it are exceptionally good. And but I feel like it depends on how long the video is, what type of sales cycle it is, what type of business it is. This is in this case, and some of this is going to be blurred out.
00:22:42:06 – 00:23:10:16
Ralph
Keep in mind if you’re watching this over on YouTube, is this is in the health care space. This is a client that’s in the health care space where the average sales cycle is probably about 30 to 60 days from first impression. First click to, you know, booking and scheduling their first appointment to treatment. So there’s a fair amount of time here so that that hook and hold rate benchmark is going to vary by business.
00:23:10:16 – 00:23:32:03
Ralph
But overall what you’re saying is is it moving in the right direction? Are people staying and watching the first three seconds a larger percentage which is your hook rate, if that is? Yes, that’s good. If they’re the hold rate is they’re staying between three seconds in the end of the video is increasing over time. In this case it’s 13%.
00:23:32:08 – 00:24:02:07
Ralph
Is that increasing over time? If it is good, like we’re looking for trends here, we’re trying to predict the future here. Leading indicators is what the real smart media buyers and growth strategies are doing with Andromeda. And they’re not just looking at results, only results are very important. Get me wrong. But like how you look at things. And this brings back sort of what we talked about in the early part of the show is you have to look at some of the numbers behind the numbers.
00:24:02:07 – 00:24:19:18
Thomas
Yeah, exactly. And we’ll see that on the next slide here, which we can jump over to know. And this is kind of like the yep I guess the magic sauce here, which is kind of like something I’ve never seen done before. So again, it comes down to like the 25% of this top spending and this slide. As for videos.
00:24:19:20 – 00:24:40:22
Thomas
So this is all of the videos that span this 12 ads here. Total spend them about $14,250. And then how we look at this, as we’ve got the spend on each of the ads, we’ve got the hook rate, the hold rate, the watch time on average for these ads. And they collect three outbound specifically because that means they’re going out to the to the landing page.
00:24:41:00 – 00:24:59:10
Thomas
And then we’ve got the key metrics which as key metrics is still the most important. Don’t get me wrong, I’m not seeing them. No. But you could, for example, be making a bad decision by switching off an ad that is not going to watch your key metrics. You know, you could have something that’s doing amazing to get you that top of the funnel traffic is feeding all the other ads.
00:24:59:12 – 00:25:18:01
Thomas
And just because it doesn’t have a lead, because it was not the last attributed ad, you could be making a very bad decision by switching that off, which is the thing that most people make a mistake on, and which probably is in a lot of your newsfeeds. If you’re an ad spend and ads like me and marketing on my feeds, on my socials, that’s what I get.
00:25:18:01 – 00:25:21:11
Thomas
And you’re seeing some crazy stuff going on. So I would be careful who you listen to on there.
00:25:21:13 – 00:25:28:08
Ralph
I’m out and all the ads too. It’s unbelievable. Anyway, so yeah, you sort of target it anyway. Keep going.
00:25:28:10 – 00:25:49:13
Thomas
Yeah. So we’ve got the key metrics over here and then we’ve, we’ve got this new identifier here which is called heads. And how we look at this. As you can see, the green boxes on each of these columns, and we’re just identifying from the list of these top 25% of spending ads. What is the top three on each one of these metrics.
00:25:49:15 – 00:26:11:08
Thomas
So we’re seeing here we’ve got an ad that’s 35.7. Hook. And then down here we’ve got one that’s 47.94. And then here we’ve got 36.87. So these have been marked with like a green box. So we’re seeing that as a as we’re calling this and it’s the top three. You could say top five if you want. But in this case we just waiting for top three to keep it to keep it a bit more neat.
00:26:11:10 – 00:26:29:20
Thomas
And basically your top three is what you should be focusing on. Your new, your new ads that you want to create, your new messaging concepts, whatever it is. That’s why we’re actually doing this. And then we’ve got the whole same thing. The top three marketing green, the watch three. Top three marked in green. Click through rate marked in green.
00:26:29:20 – 00:26:50:07
Thomas
And then obviously you’ll usually find your ones that spend the most which is the order we’ve got them in here will have your key metrics. But again that doesn’t mean like look at this one we’ve got I have four. That’s how it is crushing it. But you might see for example, only three leads on this right. This is basically pushing a lot of cheap top of the funnel traffic to your your all.
00:26:50:07 – 00:27:08:20
Thomas
Follow your website. And it’s obviously assessed in these other ads. So really interesting to see. So you’ll see we’ve got the rates here. The ones that stand out is number that’s out here that’s got four hits. And then this top one here which has got five. So yeah this is like a crossover. We call it the cross metrics.
00:27:08:22 – 00:27:32:01
Ralph
So the hits explain that one again because I mean obviously we’ve got just to give people a little bit of frame of reference here. There is a lead. If they fill in a lead form which is that third to the left column and then the second column in from the sorry third in from the right is that lead form.
00:27:32:01 – 00:27:40:14
Ralph
And then the second in from the right is a booked. Scheduled. Like they actually get on with a councilor. Correct me if I’m wrong. Yes.
00:27:40:16 – 00:28:02:21
Thomas
Yeah that’s right. And that’s the key metrics that we’re looking for here. We’re optimizing for leads for booked call as what we’re looking for. And the reason why we’re not going for the book call, which some people might be asking here, is because the cost for bit calls a little bit higher, and we want to make sure we’re getting the optimization events back to the campaigns, which is another mistake people make, which maybe we can talk about on another on another podcast.
00:28:02:21 – 00:28:19:12
Thomas
If you get me back. Yeah. But yeah, that’s, that’s why we’re doing that as well for going for the lower conversion event just so we can get the signals back to me. In this case, hopefully we can transition that when once we start scaling and but yeah, we’re going in the right direction to know. But for the hats.
00:28:19:12 – 00:28:38:09
Thomas
So you can see that one’s got five. And that’s because it’s within the top three. So we’ve got send the top three for calls, top three for leads. As the top three click three and top three hold. And the top three hook. So this is five. This one’s for yeah. Top for your top. Click through it. Top what three.
00:28:38:11 – 00:28:47:16
Thomas
Top hole. Great. And top hooks. Or with those with those hex. It’s a metric that again I’ve not seen many people off. I don’t think I’ve seen anybody to look at it just to be honest. The same.
00:28:47:18 – 00:28:52:05
Ralph
But say so for the first time this week. I was like, what the hell is that?
00:28:52:07 – 00:29:10:18
Thomas
Yeah, it’s pretty. So we can basically identify straight away, which is get your top metrics, your top ads. So that’s one against five. This one’s for got one here. That’s two also decent and one here. That’s two as well. So yeah that’s how well that’s kind of how we’re looking at it. And then yeah. I can move the next slide.
00:29:10:18 – 00:29:14:04
Thomas
Unless it’s just anything else we think would be worth. Well I.
00:29:14:04 – 00:29:39:09
Ralph
Think it’s. Yeah I mean I think this, this comes back to kind of what we discussed in the first 5 or 10 minutes is these are not necessarily just the end goal. The end goal is a booked, scheduled appointment, which is what the client wants, because that’s a leading indicator as to whether or not they can start treatment for this health center and or not.
00:29:39:15 – 00:30:00:16
Ralph
And then obviously the the secondary step to that is are they going to get reimbursed by insurance. That’s sort of another business question. So there’s there’s multi layers here. But for pure lead generation it’s not necessarily. And I’ve said this I think till I’m blue in the face or maybe purple in the face with the new lighting is it’s not about the amount of leads.
00:30:00:16 – 00:30:24:07
Ralph
It’s about of quality leads. So we’re not at the point now where we have enough budget. And we had a conversation with the client this week about this. Specifically. We’re not at the point where we have enough budget to optimize for the event that they really want, which is that book scheduled appointment. So we’re still optimizing for leads, but we’re making sure those leads are high quality.
00:30:24:09 – 00:30:48:01
Ralph
In the indication that they’re higher quality is that people are selling themselves or are being persuaded by a multitude of different ads. You’ve got your top 25 ads here. There’s almost like 12 or 15 of them here on the screen. It’s like they’re all working together to get to that lead and ultimately the scheduled appointment. And that’s how this whole thing works.
00:30:48:01 – 00:31:00:04
Ralph
Now, it’s not one ad, it’s everything working together, and even the one that has the best metrics and has the second highest hit score is not the one that’s actually getting the conversions, but it’s assisting those that are getting that convert.
00:31:00:04 – 00:31:03:08
Thomas
So you put it a lot better than me with my Scottish accent.
00:31:03:10 – 00:31:20:00
Ralph
That’s a no. That’s all right. I just all I do is I reiterate and summarize, you should see me on the Friday calls with John. All I do is translate for him. He’s harder to translate than you, by the way. And he speaks American. I at least I think he does. So anyway. So. Yeah. So let’s let’s get to the, the next slide here.
00:31:20:05 – 00:31:40:23
Ralph
But I think it’s an important thing to reiterate that it’s not just one metric anymore. It’s a combination of metrics. And if your agency or your team isn’t doing this, then you might want to show them this video. Quite honestly. Yeah. I’ve never seen this quite honestly as good as it is, and especially because this is all moving in the right direction with this client.
00:31:40:23 – 00:31:50:14
Ralph
This is a relatively newer one that we’re, you know, using here as an example, which is which is cool to see because a lot of people are probably listening to the show, haven’t even done this yet. And there and.
00:31:50:14 – 00:32:05:06
Thomas
Then the next slide is similar to the first one, but this one is for the images. And obviously with the images you don’t get your who created your watch team. It’s an image. So what we’re looking at is your click through rates and then obviously your key metrics, which is your leads in your booked calls in this case.
00:32:05:07 – 00:32:27:21
Thomas
And we do the same thing. We organize it by the top three. And then we look at the heart rates on them. So quite self-explanatory. And you always find that because of the way we structure accounts as well, you’ll find that your images will be getting a lot of the attributed leads. Sure. And you may you may make the assumption that, oh my God, like, why don’t we just make all images, you know, that would make sense, right?
00:32:27:21 – 00:32:30:00
Thomas
It’s kinda is kind of that. Well.
00:32:30:02 – 00:32:33:01
Ralph
Why don’t we spend more on brand search on Google? Why not?
00:32:33:01 – 00:32:50:14
Thomas
Yeah. Yeah, exactly. That’s another that’s another big one that comes in. But yeah, if you look at that, you see these are the videos is which educating people. It’s showing people your brand. It’s showing people your tone of voice. It’s showing people your messaging. It’s getting people a feel for your business. You can’t do that on an image.
00:32:50:14 – 00:33:03:09
Thomas
I mean, you can do it to an extent, but it’s not the same. You know, you don’t get the same amount of information across. And that’s where these the difference comes with. And that’s why we look at both of them separate. We could have just put this on one slide and say it. Here’s the top 25% of ads.
00:33:03:09 – 00:33:14:17
Thomas
But what you would have found as your images would have taken up the majority of that. You maybe have 2 or 3, videos. And now, which is why I decided to break up like this instead.
00:33:14:19 – 00:33:29:07
Ralph
Yep. I like it because like no, no AD is really like the, the vast majority of creators for this client is video. I would say what 80 plus percent or is it.
00:33:29:09 – 00:33:32:20
Thomas
Yeah they were at 60% 60% Video okay.
00:33:32:20 – 00:33:53:23
Ralph
Yeah. So we’re shifting over over to it. And the example that I’ve used many times on this show is the men’s skincare brand that I bought, like two months ago. I watched 12 like it was 2 or 3 AI videos, by the way, in this product. Anyway, so I probably watched 10 or 12 of these videos.
00:33:53:23 – 00:34:11:12
Ralph
I wasn’t even in the market for this thing. So and the last thing that actually got me the click to click to buy, and I wasn’t doing this so I could talk about it in perpetual traffic. I just did it naturally. I was like, wow, that’s actually a really good example of these guys. And how they sold me was on an image ad because they said, you know, 30, 40% off.
00:34:11:16 – 00:34:29:18
Ralph
And then I ended up buying like three bottles of the thing, like an average order value. I was like, I don’t know, like almost $200. So the point is, it’s like the last click. The thing that convinced me was the image ad, but all of the persuasion happened on the video ads. Yeah, that’s how people that’s how if people buy now like and.
00:34:29:20 – 00:34:30:08
Thomas
Yeah, but.
00:34:30:09 – 00:34:47:16
Ralph
They’ve always bought that way. It’s just weird translating that to a digital medium, especially at meta. So anyway, so now you’re showing the top creatives by format itself. And like I said, some of these might be a little bit blurred out when you’re watching this over on our YouTube channel. But yeah. Explain to me what we’re watching here.
00:34:47:18 – 00:35:07:00
Thomas
Yeah. So no, the final piece of the puzzle, I guess, and the reason that slides is exist is, well, why why are these getting these results, you know, why is they having the most hits and that’s what we break down here. So you can see again we’ve got two slides one for videos and one for images. And if you look you see this has got, hits.
00:35:07:00 – 00:35:29:10
Thomas
It’s got five out of the six metrics, which basically means it’s got the highest click theory, hold hope, create leads cost and booked calls and the watch rate on average as well. And that’s very useful because now we know what’s working on the account. What direction can we now go in with creative. And obviously we can get to work on that.
00:35:29:12 – 00:35:46:19
Thomas
So yeah again some of that’s will be built out. But this is a certain video style. But what we just mentioned over here, if this is blocked out of not as we just explain the reason why we think the creator was walking like, what’s the creative, Sean? What’s the message in underline? And there, and what sort of style was the creator then?
00:35:46:19 – 00:36:05:19
Thomas
What’s the length is a big thing as well. And we can take that information. Now that gives as lots of different diversification that we can then take to the creative team and make more. That’s again something that I don’t see many people breaking down to. That sort of detail were seen, if you put that in a nutshell, this is the calidad with the five hat, your hook rate.
00:36:05:19 – 00:36:23:17
Thomas
How great everything else. And this is the reason why and this is the direction that we are going. And because of that and that’s basically the same across these three ads. And this is like the top three hat rates I guess. So this one’s good for a six. This one’s to a six metrics. And yeah. And then we have the reason why an interaction that we’re going on on those ads.
00:36:23:19 – 00:36:47:02
Ralph
Love it. Love it. Yeah. When you were explaining this to the client this week and like, wow, this is really good. It sort of takes the whole strategy to a next level and visually shows here’s what, here’s what’s happening. It’s not necessarily what you would think. It’s not just the bottom of the funnel stuff, but here’s why we think people are engaging with this.
00:36:47:02 – 00:37:12:07
Ralph
And you actually go into a little bit of a description here, you know, or for frustrations in discouragement, calls for specific type of medical system, like there’s reasons behind why this is resonating. And we’re trying to say, okay, well, this is the stuff that’s resonating in the market. So these will probably be the first types of ads that will, have iterations on them is my guess once there’s sort of time comes.
00:37:12:09 – 00:37:25:21
Thomas
Yeah. That’s exactly that’s the purpose of it is to see what sort of the direction and go with iterations. And also a good thing, I don’t know if I pointed out at, as we can see which funnel level these are specifically targeting, you know, so these are all top of the funnel ads which your videos technically should be.
00:37:26:00 – 00:37:44:12
Thomas
Obviously you can have them in different areas. Or if a video you’re getting more messaging out and you’re explaining things a lot better. Yeah. And that’s what these are targeting on images. You see different than a middle of the funnel, bottom of the funnel, which is again, what we really want because they are they’re basically exactly what you explained with the skincare brand.
00:37:44:14 – 00:37:47:15
Thomas
They could just be finishing off the overall sales cycle.
00:37:47:17 – 00:38:13:11
Ralph
This is very cool that one of the other cool things if you’re watching this over on YouTube, once again, professional traffic.com/youtube. But you already knew that these are all AI generated ads too, because we’re anonymizing the patients, which I think is important because this is a sensitive this is a sensitive medical condition. So and we do have an actual video of real people to let’s not discount that.
00:38:13:11 – 00:38:52:21
Ralph
But it’s interesting to me that there’s so much backlash that you see now on, on social about agencies using AI generated video. And the point is, is it actually really works well, especially in the healthcare space, because you’re anonymizing, you’re keeping the patient’s identity and name confidential, but also getting the messaging out there. That’s very human. So I don’t know if you’ve seen that, or maybe you’ve already picked that up, but it’s fascinating that they are these sort of AI generated videos, which our video team did a great job on.
00:38:52:23 – 00:39:14:14
Thomas
Yeah, exactly. And this is a little pushback we get from a lot of clients. We don’t want AI you know like we don’t want. And I, I understand the well, that’s because you’ve had a bad experience with it. You know like there’s ways of doing it. Like there’s the classic I don’t know if you’ve seen it. Ralph was like the Welsh meth eating spaghetti video that’s like and is AI generated is like people.
00:39:14:15 – 00:39:32:08
Thomas
People on YouTube will probably know what I’m talking about, but is basically no, there’s a version of that video in 2026 even like from a month ago. And it’s perfect almost. It’s literally perfect eating spaghetti. But the first one from just like maybe a year and a half ago was just crazy. Like the spaghetti was flying everywhere and and things like that.
00:39:32:08 – 00:39:50:19
Thomas
But, and I think maybe people have had a bad experience with AI because like, one thing as well, like, like, I love, I like, I’m, I’m obsessed with, to be honest. But a lot of people say like, when you see an AI at like, you count the toes and fingers on people, you know, just to see, like, dizzy.
00:39:50:20 – 00:40:13:22
Thomas
So like, that’s a bad experience that people have had. But no, like, these ads are that actually done really well because also they’ve got like this sort again, I don’t know what would be blood out here, but they’ve got a style aspect to them, what looks like their hand drawn, you know, even it looks like a cartoon way, but done with a tasteful way instead of like looking cheesy, you know, name of the underlying voice over the top of them.
00:40:14:00 – 00:40:29:08
Thomas
And I think that’s why they really resonate with good. That sort of I think the feeling behind them is what works. And yeah, like, you wouldn’t know there were AI unless you really sat down and found it. Oh, but you’ve got the other side of that, which is an AI person speaking directly to the camera, which you like.
00:40:29:08 – 00:40:35:01
Thomas
That looks shockingly bad, you know. Yeah. So that’s kind of the the caveat to the AI thing.
00:40:35:03 – 00:41:01:12
Ralph
Yeah, it’s sort of a car. It’s cartoon. It we can’t run. Oh can’t show these to you specifically. But it’s it, it is in essence sort of hand-drawn, almost cartoon figures but non animate. It’s animation, not cartoon. I think that’s a bad word for an animation. And it’s not like you can come across as like really corny if you don’t do it right or in bad taste.
00:41:01:12 – 00:41:19:02
Ralph
And I think you’ve got to walk that fine line, especially in the health care space. You’ve got to be super careful with that. But what it is, is people are resonating with it. It’s like if these did not resonate, you would get an immediate signal and they would not have hook rate and hold rates and click through rates and watch rates like we’re talking about here.
00:41:19:03 – 00:41:27:06
Ralph
Wow. Good stuff. Now we’ve got the images to also show these last here. And talk us through these ones.
00:41:27:08 – 00:41:44:13
Thomas
Yeah. Just the same thing with the mat is obviously the top three with heart rates just as same as the slides. For the videos, and then on these ones, you see just on this one, you see, like these are bottom of the funnel and middle of the funnel, which is interesting as well, which it should be.
00:41:44:15 – 00:41:58:17
Thomas
Because your top of the funnel should be getting the message out as much as possible. And then these again should be basically assessed in through the person’s journey to become a buyer. So yeah, that’s the same thing, as the last layer, but just for the images.
00:41:58:19 – 00:42:22:20
Ralph
Yeah. And they’re getting a lot of those sort of S1 and S2 conversions, which are sort of the, the application filled and then the book to scheduled call, which is, which would make sense because it’s like, all right, this is where we’re at. This is where we’re located. This is the thing, this is the insurance. This is like it’s sort of the final thing that you need to say.
00:42:22:20 – 00:42:44:12
Ralph
And before you say, all right, okay, I’ll fill out the application. I’ve seen 10 or 12 other videos here. This resonates. These guys seem to know what they’re doing. Could be your business in this case, it’s we got to be a little bit more careful on the health care space. But yeah, I mean that’s makes a lot of sense that most of the conversions, so to speak, I’m quoting conversions happen on the image ads.
00:42:44:12 – 00:42:52:19
Ralph
But they couldn’t have done it without the help of all the other video ads, which is the, like you said, 60% of the advertising that we’re doing right now and probably more to come.
00:42:52:21 – 00:43:02:02
Thomas
Yeah, yeah, he’s and if he did not fit in the top of the funnel, basically letting more people come in, to become buyers.
00:43:02:04 – 00:43:24:06
Ralph
So if you had to summarize this and sort of the lesson for today’s show, how would you describe this for somebody who’s like, talk to the, the CMO or the, the founder who’s maybe doing some of this stuff on his own, like, what’s the takeaway if they’re running their own advertising, especially on meta right now, and that’s the big platform.
00:43:24:06 – 00:43:35:13
Ralph
I mean, obviously 5/8 of the world’s population is on the thing every single month. So your buyer is probably on. There is my guess. What’s the summary here? What’s the takeaway?
00:43:35:15 – 00:44:00:00
Thomas
Yeah. I guess trying to keep it as simple as possible as know your creative as your target. And that is the key thing I would say is like the most important, things have changed, dramatically over the last year, at least for me. So your creative should be having, like, an underlying quality message that talks to people and makes you stand out.
00:44:00:01 – 00:44:24:03
Thomas
And then you also have that key of diversification like I’ve showed here. You’ve got images, carousels, videos. And then those key metrics, no more are more than ever of having everything. And they’re working together. So yeah, your creative overall, I guess the simplest way, as you create a visual target and make sure you have good diversification and there, and yeah, don’t fall for the trap of trying to split everything out, because I know that makes sense to a lot of people.
00:44:24:03 – 00:44:38:05
Thomas
Like, well, these are people who have, for example, became a lead bit of knob. So let’s just target all those leads like that’s a that’s a mistake I see a lot of people make. So yeah, but I would avoid things like that if that. That makes sense.
00:44:38:07 – 00:44:55:17
Ralph
As much as possible. Yeah. Totally makes sense. Well, this has been great. And, yes, I would love to have you come back on. I think I actually, I have it scheduled for next month. So anyway, so yes, it is. This is the kind of stuff that is working right now. And so bottom line here everybody, it’s not the stuff that you used to look at.
00:44:55:17 – 00:45:19:13
Ralph
It’s not the metrics that you used to look at to determine the success of your digital marketing campaigns, especially on meta right now because of these massive changes. And there’s a reason why all of this stuff is happening is because so many of these tech companies are investing so heavily into AI, and the machine learning that’s coming out of it is I.
00:45:19:17 – 00:45:53:20
Ralph
I’ve never seen it as good as it is now, and I’ve said that 100 times. But I’ll say it again, it’s like it’s amazing to me if you can really get the messaging and the the real differential for your product service, for your customer, for your client, for your prospect, right. And be able to tell that narrative in a lot of different bite sized chunks, usually video like how meta will be able to create sort of its own internal funnel for one particular prospect all the way through through Andromeda, Gemma, lattice.
00:45:53:21 – 00:46:13:22
Ralph
All these different updates that have happened in the last year is transformative in marketing right now, and I know it gets you excited. Thomas certainly gets me excited. And for business owners and for the amazing VP of marketing, you should be excited about it too, because this is the platform right now for scaling and growing, bar none. Nothing I’ve seen better.
00:46:14:02 – 00:46:39:09
Ralph
So I appreciate you coming on and sharing all this stuff, especially hit rate. I didn’t even know that was that existed. So yet another metric for you all to steal from the show. And of course, if you need our help, you can get it over at tier 11.com/apply Thomas McNaught. Subtitles or no subtitles. Great job again. As always, look forward to having you back next months.
00:46:39:12 – 00:46:42:07
Thomas
Yeah, yeah. Thanks for having me.
00:46:42:09 – 00:47:03:09
Ralph
All right, well, all the links and the mentions that we talked about in today’s show, including that Will Smith video, which is hysterical, by the way. We will we’ll leave that over in the show notes over at Perpetual Traffic’s com. And of course, wherever you listen to podcasts, make sure that you leave us a rating and or a review, especially on Spotify.
00:47:03:09 – 00:47:29:20
Ralph
We’re not a play on Spotify these days is pretty good. It helps us get out to a wider audience and teach people how to do this stuff the right way, through metrics that matter and gross that scales. So on behalf of my amazing guest host, Thomas, if not till next show, see you.
