Creative Intuition / Performative Intuition

by way of introduction:

I believe the best place to start is from a 30,000-foot overview perspective. Before getting into specifics of best ad performance ingredients, its rather important to note that orienting oneself to a best overall approach to process, from the start, is key for a number of reasons. Namely, saving time and money. This cautionary step is not typically covered in Facebook Ad Setup courses. But can provide much value right away. While most tutorials highlight best ad performance practices that tend to lean towards the strengths of metrics and analysis over time, there is something more important initially to honor about the process. How to approach the Facebook ads process with an eye toward viral ingredient advantage. And that THAT is actually a real and genuine way to approach an overall process. One that can tend to give quite an edge before ever entering a metric and analysis refinement phase. One that can tend to reduce discovering what doesn’t work with what does, or best might from your very first ad forward.

And that is:

The Art Form of Intuitive Performance. The real-world sense and understanding that marketing is more an artform than a science. Resonating with that, as a part of the overall ad performance process, may seem overly subjective, but put into simple and initial practice will generally bring short term and immediate success to ad performance. And that saves time and money. Because then, we will tend to initially guess quite a bit less from the start. And grant improvisation a signature seat at the ad performance table. Which will tend to sharpen our creative sense all along the process. And that is where viral ad performance (optimal performance) can potentially happen. This is likely as important to know that it exists as it is in having it. Because thinking it does not exist, leaves us more dependent on metric science than what may actually sell on Meta. In a mega-way. Ad success is as at least as much an art of probability as it is science. And probability is the result of best approximating art form. To know this going in, can be a helpful overall intuitive sense that can very much demonstrate itself in real applicable value.

Why this approach works:

There is good reason for metrics and analysis (the measure of demographics and behaviors). And they have their places, as we will explore in the ad ingredients that tend to perform best with Lead Ads on Facebook. But as we enter the Facebook algorithmic universe, we are provided with quite a lot. We are provided with the commercially fruitful advantages of living in a dynamically active Al empowered mega city.

The Facebook Algorithmic Universe:

One helpful way to think about Facebook Marketing is that its very nature and environment is synonymous with a Big Data Universe. The amount of daily data points that Facebook tracks is in the trillions. Facebook is not just a big impersonal data universe. But quite to the contrary, FB is a power gathering center of personalized and accessible experiences. A Mount Olympus like machine learning thoroughfare. It's a towering empire of commercially relevant persona constantly updating, comparing, and evolving. A blossoming mega info flower of the personal kind. And Lead Ads are a way to dip our marketing toes into that warm and vibrant, at the true- speed-of-life, totally commercially relevant, ecosystem.

As we look upon the Facebook Algorithmic Universe in this way, we can get a sense of it in a google search like silhouette. Say what? Not you searching for data, as much as data searching for...you. In becoming aware of this marketing condition, we can think about our ads in quite a uniquely creative way. The key words we use in our primary text. The copy terms expressed in our headlines. The behaviors described. The demographics we insert in ad copy. The concepts we lay out. The image and even text we include in that image (or video content we provide). All can factor into who sees our ad. They all become like living and breathing poetic perfume that attracts data rich, self-learning and intuitive FB sensors super intelligently interested in who to best show your ad to. These are not just billions of data points seeking your ad. But rather targeted tailored compositions of potential real interests towards your ad. The magic in Facebook Lead Ads is in how the ad designs themselves help a very eager and dynamic enterprise system, recognize...you...and your ad. The art of being noticed and being discoverable. Designing ads with this in mind, are the very metrics of the FB algorhythmic heart and soul.

There is a difference between ads that perform well, and ads that perform very well...consistently. The reason for this being a possibility is found perhaps in the age-old question: Is marketing an art or a science? Today, with all the metrics we have, we might tend to perceive that marketing is a science. After all, adjusting what works by what we find in stats tends to be a very helpful tool. And yes, finetuning ad and Facebook ad settings helps improve performance quite a bit. But as we measure what best works in ad creative and FB setting performance over time, we might inadvertently finetune our marketing instincts at the expense of our creative intuition. Making our own creative soul somewhat a metric itself. And that metric become a data based scientific find. We don't exactly want that. So, this is where we can ask: "Is that scientific find insight into sharpening creativity, art? Or does that kind of "find" trade creative intuition for dry data stats that generate better performance? And if better ad performance is the goal, how could dry statistics be a wrong approach? Insights gained from metrics is most always helpful. Right?

Yes. For the most part, this is true. However, a not so often discussed aspect to optimal ad performance is how intuitive creative instinct can transcend metrics. Having the ability to rely less upon A/B Testing to see which ad creative might perform better can bring in prospects sooner. As well as reach more prospects overall. Time after time.

Creative Intuition

Our ability to discern what might work well in an ad because of how it matters to our target audience and how it translates to them

Performative Intuition

Knowing why an add can perform well. This is commonly understood primarily through metrics and analysis. It is good to be careful here not to mistake what performs well or not so well technically and miss meaning that may be more profound to the ad creative process elements than merely why it scientifically works via technically adjusting to data readouts

Why those terms matter

Having the ability to back away enough from the ad creation process oversite to be able to notice helpful distinctions between what is performative intuition and what is creative intuition is important. The importance in recognizing the difference can provide fresher ad creative perspective. Creative intuition is just what is actually creative about the ad that grabs your audience because of what it is. Whereas performative intuition can be a collection of insights about your target audience or mistaken as technical adjustments you might make in spite of a lack of creative edge in knowing your target audience from a more personal place. The ideal performative intuition would be insight built on who your target audience is and what resonates with them most MORE than merely stats that CAN tend to perform better. Adjusting the technical apertures (demographics/behavior focuses) will gain results. But are those changes best for temporary improvements gained from stats? Or are there adjustments you can make that better speak to your core audience or resonate with fresh audience perspectives maybe not previously realized? Because those performative differences can produce better performance vs. optimal exponential performance

We can learn what certain creative choices work more in our ads than other choices we can come to understand that don't. But the downside of permitting or committing our creative instinct to become a metric measuring tool can become something like this: The trading of instinct for the appearance of what performs well.

If we allow what seems to be performing well to substitute as creative instinct, we may be able to roll out many future ads that perform well. But then, performative intuition, for us, may tend to become merely orientations to marketing science posing as artistic heart. And what is thought of as that which is organically creative, can become for us a mere metric. Losing sense of, to a degree, perhaps "how and why" creatives might work or not. Our sense of what works and why beyond datapoints can become somewhat dull. And our reliance upon analysis become unnecessarily co-dependent, and deficient in general concerning intuitive creativity. Whatever happens with all of that, should result in just simply getting creativity closer to honoring our core audience, and what things mean to them.

If we let performative intuition override organic creative intuition, we can end up confusing creative intuition for learned data collection of what works best for today. Instead of doing that, we could have been gaining best viral ad condition insights we picked up along the way. Ending up mistaking decent ad performance for what otherwise could have been better ways of approaching the art of ad composition in general. And I don't mean that as a violation of principle, as much as a missed opportunity to better prime instinct to reach more people in ways that can, and that matter—to them.

Being able to recognize this distinction as we go can be the ongoing experience and difference of ads that perform well, and ads that perform best. And that difference in results there can be exponential: the disparity between what gets marketing traction and what has a viral quality of heart and soul. And that difference, on a practical level can be the difference between 20 quality leads and 100. Or 100 and 1,000.

This boutique approach to Facebook Lead Ads acknowledges the value of replicating what works in marketing. It takes into account the science of marketing (metrics and analysis), as well as developing clearest ad attribute choices that can be streamlined and repeated. In addition, this ads approach overview visits ongoing ad choices that strengthens discretion between what is performative intuition and creative intuition. Providing us with a better know how that translates into approximating viral ad like performance more consistently.