Diagnosing an ad account’s creative gaps

TL;DR

• Dara’s 3-step start with any brand: personas → diagnosis → creators/formats.¹
• Persona check: compare who the live ads target with who the reviews say buys — there is almost always a gap, and it is the opportunity.¹
• Write a diagnosis: 1–2 sentences explaining the why behind everything on the roadmap. Without it you only have testing.²
• Check: awareness levels (most brands lack unaware/problem-aware ads), spend mix by format (30–50% on partnership ads), 3–4 fed messaging pillars, landing-page message match, creator fit.³⁴⁵

Details

Real diagnoses Dara has given (2026):⁶⁷

• All live content aimed at one persona; reviews showed two other personas more dominant → focus on opening those audiences.
• After 6 months of persona tests, the older segment had better video retention and site conversion → next quarter only that age group, with 40+ creators.
• Top performers were all promos or product launches → not enough evergreen content to last.
• Good learnings but not iterated into other formats or handed to creators.

The “onion-peeling” checklist:

1. Awareness levels of all live ads. The usual finding: too little unaware/problem-aware content, so the brand “bleeds its top of funnel”; winners are solution/brand-aware or offer-based.³ Ads that work for 1–2 weeks then fall off a cliff are typically product/solution-aware ads that exhausted that pool.⁸
2. Personas — do this before the diagnosis.⁴
3. Content gaps — % of monthly spend on images, video, carousel and partnership ads; is messaging diversified across formats?⁴ On sales calls Dara asks the partnership-ad share first; she likes 30–50%, and brands under 25% (often under 5%) are “in trouble”.⁵
4. Messaging pillars — 3–4 core content buckets constantly fed, and the winning bucket’s message carried onto the landing page.⁹
5. Creator diagnosis when “UGC doesn’t work for us”:⁹¹⁰¹¹
   • creator profiles don’t match personas (not 1:1 — a 55+ customer may aspire to someone else);
   • content not aspirational (bottom-of-the-barrel marketplace creators “with nothing going on behind the eyes”);
   • budget only on big or only on small creators (see Partnership (whitelisted) ads and choosing creators who convert);
   • weak delivery, low volume, or no personal storytelling.

Disagreements / caveats

• Awareness strategy depends on category: for a crowded collagen product Dara went more solution-aware (why we beat competitors); for a little-known product, more education up-funnel.⁸
• The 30–50% partnership share is Dara’s e-commerce benchmark, not tested for apps.

See also

• Creative diversity after Meta Andromeda — the five levels — the same audit as a maturity ladder
• Matching ad formats to the buyer's state — the T-E-E-P framework and awareness levels — Sarah Levinger’s funnel-stage coverage check
• Dara Denney

Footnotes

1. I Made 10,000 Ads, Here's What Works Right Now (in 2026) @ 01:35 — Dara Denney ↩ ↩²

2. I Made 10,000 Ads, Here's What Works Right Now (in 2026) @ 02:21 — Dara Denney ↩

3. I Made 10,000 Ads, Here's What Works Right Now (in 2026) @ 04:39 — Dara Denney ↩ ↩²

4. I Made 10,000 Ads, Here's What Works Right Now (in 2026) @ 05:27 — Dara Denney ↩ ↩² ↩³

5. I Made 10,000 Ads, Here's What Works Right Now (in 2026) @ 00:00 — Dara Denney ↩ ↩²

6. I Made 10,000 Ads, Here's What Works Right Now (in 2026) @ 03:07 — Dara Denney ↩

7. I Made 10,000 Ads, Here's What Works Right Now (in 2026) @ 03:52 — Dara Denney ↩

8. The 5 Levels of Creative Diversity (most brands miss this) @ 04:47 — Dara Denney ↩ ↩²

9. I Made 10,000 Ads, Here's What Works Right Now (in 2026) @ 06:14 — Dara Denney ↩ ↩²

10. I Made 10,000 Ads, Here's What Works Right Now (in 2026) @ 07:02 — Dara Denney ↩

11. I Made 10,000 Ads, Here's What Works Right Now (in 2026) @ 08:42 — Dara Denney ↩