Testing creative formats in buckets

TL;DR

• Step 1, buckets: make a batch of videos per TikTok format (day in the life, testimonial, lifestyle…) and run them as separate creative tests.¹
• Step 2, pick the format with the lowest cost per result (store visit), then double down on it.²
• Step 3, iterate one element at a time: different creators, the hook/first sentence, frames per second (3–4 cuts/s), CTA at the end, or not naming the product.²³
• Leaving out the app’s name can push viewers to comment “what app is this?”. Engagement then lowers CPC and CPM.³
• Small human differences matter: British accents in US ads beat American ones for Reflectly because they stood out. Then micro-target accents per country.⁴
• Samet Durgun’s 2025 version: once you have a creative, make versions by changing the hook and the script. Lead with the pain and emotion, not app features, for the first ~5 seconds.⁵

Details

The celebrity-sound accident. Reflectly used a trending TikTok sound that was a quote from YouTuber Emma Chamberlain on a “day in the life” video. Viewers recognised her voice in the first second, stayed, and clicked. Boosted on a micro-creator’s account, it reached ~40M views, with downloads and revenue. Then her lawyer sent a cease-and-desist.⁶⁷

Turning it into a test. They hired voice actors imitating celebrities who match the audience archetype (e.g. Ariana Grande for 18–25 women; also Morgan Freeman). Most tests made little difference, though he thinks off-season timing hurt them.⁸

Creative is targeting. Host Jonathan Fishman cited a Facebook study (“The Big Catch”) that recommends using creatives as the new targeting: a yoga-woman creative finds that audience.⁹

Disagreements / caveats

• Legal risk: using a real person’s voice or likeness without permission can bring legal action. Thorpe’s “not legal advice” aside isn’t a licence. Voice imitation also raises right-of-publicity and FTC issues (Using AI to scale app ad creatives (without fake testimonials)).
• 2022 TikTok evidence. Post-Andromeda Meta penalises look-alike iterations as one “entity” (Creative similarity and "entity IDs" — why 30 ads can get one ad's worth of delivery), so balance iterations with net-new formats.
• Single-element iteration fits Organic UGC creative strategy — virality, conversion, repeatability and the three layers (layer 2, “iterate one variable”).

See also

• Ad formats for apps and services with no physical product — format ideas to fill the buckets
• When to iterate on a winning Meta ad vs make a net-new concept
• Ryan Thorpe

Footnotes

1. TikTok: the NextGen User Acquisition Mobile Channel with Ryan Thorpe, Co-Founder and CMO of Refle... @ 15:43 — Ryan Thorpe ↩

2. TikTok: the NextGen User Acquisition Mobile Channel with Ryan Thorpe, Co-Founder and CMO of Refle... @ 16:29 — Ryan Thorpe ↩ ↩²

3. TikTok: the NextGen User Acquisition Mobile Channel with Ryan Thorpe, Co-Founder and CMO of Refle... @ 17:17 — Ryan Thorpe ↩ ↩²

4. TikTok: the NextGen User Acquisition Mobile Channel with Ryan Thorpe, Co-Founder and CMO of Refle... @ 18:06 — Ryan Thorpe ↩

5. LTV mastery: Getting high-value subscribers from Meta @ 24:58 — Samet Durgun ↩

6. TikTok: the NextGen User Acquisition Mobile Channel with Ryan Thorpe, Co-Founder and CMO of Refle... @ 20:29 — Ryan Thorpe ↩

7. TikTok: the NextGen User Acquisition Mobile Channel with Ryan Thorpe, Co-Founder and CMO of Refle... @ 22:06 — Ryan Thorpe ↩

8. TikTok: the NextGen User Acquisition Mobile Channel with Ryan Thorpe, Co-Founder and CMO of Refle... @ 24:46 — Ryan Thorpe ↩

9. TikTok: the NextGen User Acquisition Mobile Channel with Ryan Thorpe, Co-Founder and CMO of Refle... @ 13:59 — Jonathan Fishman ↩