Evan Lee
Hosts Motion’s free Creative Strategy Bootcamp (2026) and moderates its guest sessions. Teaches the foundations: the three “altitudes” of a creative strategist, the jobs and layers of a hook, and the hook analytics funnel (spend → thumbstop → hold → CTR → conversion).
Bias to keep in mind: works for Motion, a creative-analytics tool — examples and metrics are framed around Motion’s reports; many example ads are Motion’s own bootcamp promos.
Sources: sources/youtube/motion-creative-analytics/.
Notes citing Evan Lee
- Anatomy of an ad hook — three jobs, layers, and fit-in-then-stand-outWhat a hook must do (stop with emotion, target/disqualify, connect to the story), its layers (visual, audio/text, psychological — plus Dara Denney's "vibe"), why the visual layer often matters most, "hook slop", moving the ad's anchor to second one, and worked breakdowns (Ridge, Jones Road, PureSkin towel, microplastics cutting board, Burga).
- Brand reality — production capacity, true creative cost and team alignmentWhy a creative plan that needs 50 ads/month fails with a team that makes 20, what an ad really costs (labour, attention, ops load), the monthly "if you could optimise for one thing" alignment question, and Sarah Levinger's "volume = what you can ship consistently at quality".
- Briefing UGC creators — how much script, what to include, modular deliverablesWhat goes into a UGC creator brief (brand/product onboarding, guardrails, tips for winning, visual examples, hooks, filming and delivery specs), the script-vs-freedom spectrum (Caraway 90% exact scripts, Savannah Sanchez's ad-lib for trusted creators, Dara Denney's "let creators lead"), matching a creator's native style, and commissioning modular parts (hooks, CTAs, stills, raw VO).
- Creative diversity after Meta Andromeda — the five levelsDara Denney's ladder for creative diversity on Meta post-Andromeda — level 0 statics vs video, 1 format expansion, 2 awareness-level expansion, 3 desire/motivation expansion, 4 persona and use-case expansion, 5 "true" diversity — and how it changes test setup (all statics in one ad set, maximum visual range per video test).
- Customer research for ad creative — generations, micro-moments, emotionsSarah Levinger's customer-reality research (the "customer cake") — generational context (information, money, life stage, trust), micro-moments when the problem surfaces, and emotional mapping (valence/intensity, private vs social, acute vs chronic) — with where to find each, plus review-mining shortcuts from Dara Denney and Emily Hickey.
- Diagnosing why a Meta ad isn't working (metric-pattern cheatsheet)Metric patterns that locate where an ad breaks — low thumbstop with OK CTR (fix the hook), high watch with low CTR (stronger CTA), clicks but short watch (shorten), high CTR with no conversions (landing page/offer), rising CPM/CPA on a winner (fatigue), no spend at all (similarity) — and how to turn each into a testable hypothesis.
- Founder ads — why they win and how to make themWhy founder content is S-tier on Meta (often a brand's first top performer), the founder hooks that test best (why I built this; "I'm X, founder of Y" with name in text overlay), going high-fi via 10–20 interview questions instead of a script, and whitelisting from founders' personal accounts.
- Iterating on winning ads and the weekly hook-testing cadenceDara Denney's 10 iterations on a winner (messaging, edit, messaging-visual, format, creator, green screen over the ad, user-journey, human-desire, high-fi founder, and when to revive a loser) with the 90/10 net-new rule, plus Savannah Sanchez's weekly framework (2 concepts × 2 written × 2 visual hooks) and "same concept, new creator" tests.
- Landing pages for Meta ads — congruency, listicles and sales pagesWhy Meta traffic converts better on a page that continues the ad's angle (listicles, advertorials, quizzes, nav-free sales pages) than on a PDP or homepage, with conversion-rate benchmarks and case results (+25%, +30%, $25K→$40K/day without new ads).
- Matching ad formats to the buyer's state — the T-E-E-P framework and awareness levelsSarah Levinger's Trigger → Exploration → Evaluation → Purchase framework for choosing ad formats by psychological state (with Ridge ring examples), how to weight the mix by business goal, and Dara Denney's awareness-level expansion (unaware → product-aware).
- Partnership (whitelisted) ads and choosing creators who convertWhy partnership/whitelisted ads are S-tier on Meta post-Andromeda (persona reach, net-new audiences, 30–50% of spend), how to pick creators (aspirational over look-alike, big vs micro by category — Jones Road vs Caraway), the lo-fi-statics add-on, and Caraway's native partnership-ad formats.
- Reading creative metrics — spend, thumbstop/hook rate, hold rate, CTR, conversionThe hook analytics funnel (spend → thumbstop → hold → CTR → conversion), exact thumbstop formula, primary vs "storytelling" metrics, diagnostic patterns (high hook + low CTR = wrong audience), spend thresholds, new-visitor % as an incrementality proxy, and Dara Denney's four-step UGC analysis (metrics, content, comparison, feedback).
- The Motivator Map — hero product, value-prop testing, why buy vs why believeEmily Hickey's (Chief Detective) Hero Sequence — pick the hero product, research and resonance-test value props on Meta, document a Motivator Map (killer hooks, emotional why, supporting points, visual patterns), then brainstorm "why believe" content against fixed "why buys" — with Tide, Pampers and Home Depot examples.
- Verbal and text hook templates that are winning on Meta (2025–2026)A swipe list of tested spoken/text-overlay hooks — investment, "I thought this was a scam", give-me-time, POV/I hate X, founder origin and founder intro, in-action, emotional cliffhanger, "why did no one tell me", "if you…" call-outs, plus Savannah Sanchez's storytime and skit lines — with why each works and how to source them.
- Visual and skit hook formats for UGC ads (2025–2026)Swipe list of visual first-3-second hooks — yapper settings (running, car chat), "oh my god what is that", spin the bottle, mission-complete magnifier, outfit-change transitions, bold/handwritten text, text-exchange screens, product swipes — plus stock-footage pattern interrupts (drip, squeeze, surreal, explosions) and edit-level hook swaps (green screen, split screen, response bubble).
- Weekly Meta media-buying cadence and attribution settingsLaunch new ads on one fixed day each week and judge after 7 days; use 7-day click for evergreen campaigns and 1-day click for flash sales; starter bid/attribution defaults; how teams run weekly pillar and hypothesis reviews; when third-party attribution tools are worth it.
- What creative strategy is and where a new creative strategist startsThe job of a creative strategist (find the highest-leverage thing, not "make more ads"), Evan Lee's three altitudes (org → team → individual), Emily Hickey's first principles (algorithm ads are a creative game, winners win, small tests) and the "what decision will this research make?" rule.
- Which Meta ad metrics to track, and how to read themA minimal Ads Manager column set split into primary metrics (spend, purchases, cost per purchase, ROAS — the only ones to optimise on) and storytelling metrics (frequency, CPM, unique outbound CTR, first-frame retention, hook/thumbstop, hold, completion, shares), with definitions and the thresholds practitioners use.