Paid Media Doesn't Make Boring Creative Interesting

There’s a post.

It’s been live for three days.

Nobody watched it.

Nobody shared it.

Nobody commented on it.

Technically, someone commented:

“Love this! 🔥”

It was an employee.

Thanks, Sarah.

The post has generated approximately the same level of public excitement as an update to your company’s privacy policy.

So we have a meeting.

“What do we think happened?”

Well.

The opening isn’t particularly interesting.

The idea feels quite corporate.

It takes seven seconds to get to the point.

The creator sounds like they’re being held hostage.

And I’m not entirely sure why a customer would—

“Do you think we should put some paid behind it?”

Sorry?

“Maybe $50k?”

Right.

So just to confirm.

People are currently ignoring this for free.

And now we’d like to pay more people to ignore it?

Excellent.

Media team, over to you.

Paid Media Is Distribution. Not Necromancy.

We love paid media.

Let’s get that out of the way.

Paid media is incredibly useful.

It can get your work in front of the right people.

Scale campaigns.

Drive frequency.

Reach audiences organic content won’t.

Retarget.

Convert.

Test.

Launch.

Sell.

Do all sorts of clever little things involving acronyms.

But there is one thing media cannot do.

Make a boring idea interesting.

It can distribute the boring idea.

Very efficiently, sometimes.

It can target precisely the demographic most likely to ignore your boring idea.

It can deliver your boring idea at an industry-leading CPM.

It can show your boring idea to someone six times.

But at some point, the human on the other end still has to give a shit.

We Have a Distribution Problem

Maybe.

But first:

Do we have an interest problem?

These are not the same thing.

If you made something brilliant and 43 people saw it?

Distribution problem.

Get the media going.

If you made something nobody wants to watch and 43 people saw it?

We don't know yet.

If 400,000 people saw it and nobody gave a shit?

We may have some clues.

This distinction matters because marketers have an enormous number of sophisticated tools for fixing distribution.

We can change audiences.

Placements.

Frequency.

Bids.

Objectives.

Formats.

Spend.

But there’s no targeting option for:

People who will suddenly find this ad less boring.

Meta hasn't released that one yet.

“But Organic and Paid Are Different”

Correct.

Thank you.

We can all go home.

No, seriously, they are.

A piece of content performing badly organically does not automatically mean it will perform badly in paid.

Different audiences.

Different objectives.

Different optimisation.

Different delivery.

Different context.

A direct-response ad might never get shared by thousands of people and still sell a shitload of product.

Good.

We like selling products.

So this is not:

LOW ORGANIC VIEWS = NEVER SPEND MONEY ON IT.

That would be stupid.

It’s:

If the creative is giving you signs that people aren’t interested, perhaps investigate that before reaching for the media budget.

Because sometimes the problem isn’t that enough people haven't seen it.

Sometimes enough people have seen it to tell you something.

Your Audience Is Giving You Free Research

This is one of the strangest things about social.

Brands spend enormous amounts of money researching what people might respond to.

Then publish hundreds of pieces of content every year and barely use the behavioural information sitting in front of them.

Which hooks consistently hold attention?

Which faces do people stop for?

Which creators outperform?

Which topics get shared?

Which formats die?

Which opening lines make people leave immediately?

Which pieces drive action?

Which beautifully art-directed campaign your entire marketing team loved got absolutely murdered the second it met an actual customer?

Useful.

Painful.

But useful.

Your social feed is constantly giving you signals about what earns attention.

Not perfect answers.

Signals.

And instead of learning from them, sometimes the response is:

“Boost it.”

Stop Paying to Avoid the Lesson

This might be the bit that hurts.

Sometimes poor performance is valuable.

Because it tells you the thing didn't work.

Maybe the hook was wrong.

Maybe the execution was wrong.

Maybe the talent was wrong.

Maybe the offer wasn't compelling.

Maybe the audience was wrong.

Maybe the idea was just a bit shit.

Fantastic.

Now we know something.

Make another one.

Try a different opening.

Change the creator.

Rewrite it.

Test it.

Learn.

That’s one of the beautiful things about social.

You can make.

Publish.

Learn.

Make again.

Unless every time something underperforms, we immediately pump money into it until the dashboard contains a sufficiently large number.

Then we haven't necessarily improved the marketing.

We’ve just purchased a nicer-looking report.

Congratulations. We Got 1.4 Million Impressions.

Amazing.

What happened?

“We got 1.4 million impressions.”

Yes.

I heard that bit.

What happened?

“Reach was really strong.”

Okay.

Did people watch?

“Video starts were up.”

Did they keep watching?

“We delivered well against benchmark.”

Did they care?

“The CPM was very efficient.”

Did they remember us?

“We achieved 1.4 million impressions.”

Right.

I think we’re stuck in a loop.

This is where media metrics can become emotional support animals.

The numbers are real.

The numbers can be useful.

But sometimes we use the existence of numbers to avoid asking the more uncomfortable question:

Was the marketing any fucking good?

Cheap Attention Nobody Wants Is Still Attention Nobody Wants

Marketers understandably love a low CPM.

More reach for less money.

Lovely.

But cheapest isn't always best.

Imagine Creative A costs you $8 CPM.

Creative B costs you $12 CPM.

A wins.

Easy.

Except people barely watch Creative A.

Nobody remembers it.

Creative B holds attention, gets shared, drives comments and creates significantly more response.

Which was cheaper?

Depends what you were trying to buy.

If the objective was:

Put pixels in front of eyeballs.

Congratulations to Creative A.

If the objective was:

Make a human being notice, remember or do something.

We may need another column.

This is why creative and media cannot be treated as completely separate systems.

The quality of the thing you're distributing affects the value of the distribution.

Better Creative Can Make Media Cheaper

And on social, this gets even more interesting.

Better creative doesn't only make an impression more valuable.

It can actually affect the economics of distribution.

Make something people want to watch.

Your paid performance can improve.

Make something people engage with.

Your media can work harder.

Make something people voluntarily share.

Now you're getting distribution you didn't directly buy.

Use a creator with an existing audience and suddenly your “creative” investment also comes with distribution attached.

This is why the old:

CREATIVE BUDGET | MEDIA BUDGET

split is getting increasingly weird.

The two affect each other.

We made a calculator around exactly this idea because apparently building calculators is what creative agencies do for fun now.

Play with the Creative Boost Calculator

The interesting question isn't simply:

How cheaply can we buy impressions?

It’s:

How much harder could those media dollars work if the creative was better?

Paid Should Pour Petrol on the Fire

This is the bit we’d love brands to get better at.

Use paid media to scale things worth scaling.

You have a strong campaign?

Go.

A piece of content is showing promising signals?

Push it.

A creator execution is outperforming?

Put fuel behind it.

You've got a direct-response ad that's converting even though nobody is sending it to their mum?

Excellent.

Scale the bastard.

But the mindset changes.

Instead of:

“We made this. Therefore we must spend $50,000 distributing it.”

Try:

“We made this. What is the evidence telling us?”

Maybe the answer is spend.

Maybe the answer is edit.

Maybe the answer is change the hook.

Maybe the answer is make another version.

Maybe the answer is kill it.

Not every piece of creative deserves life support.

The Media Budget Can Hide a Lot of Sins

This is perhaps why the habit survives.

Paid media can make things look successful.

Spend enough and numbers happen.

Impressions.

Views.

Clicks.

Reach.

Charts move.

Arrows turn green.

Someone screenshots the dashboard.

The campaign has now officially performed.

Meanwhile, the creative itself might have done absolutely nothing memorable.

And because media guarantees some level of exposure, we can avoid confronting that for quite a long time.

Boring creative fails quietly.

Media lets it fail professionally.

With reporting.

Imagine Doing This Anywhere Else

You open a restaurant.

Nobody likes the food.

Customers aren't coming back.

Reviews are terrible.

You call a meeting.

“What should we do?”

Someone says:

“What if we spent another $50,000 getting more people through the door?”

Maybe.

Or.

Tiny suggestion.

Should we fix the food?

Imagine releasing a film nobody likes and responding by buying more cinema screens.

Imagine writing a book nobody finishes and solving the problem with a larger print run.

Imagine a comedian bombing for 20 minutes and saying:

“I think the issue is audience size.”

Maybe don't book Rod Laver Arena yet.

Advertising is somehow one of the few places where:

“People didn't respond to the thing”

can immediately become:

“Let's show the thing to more people.”

Media and Creative Should Be in the Same Conversation

The point isn't creative versus media.

That fight is boring too.

We need both.

Brilliant creative with no distribution can disappear.

Brilliant media behind terrible creative can waste enormous amounts of money.

The interesting stuff happens when they work together.

Creative data informs media.

Media data informs creative.

Organic gives us signals.

Paid lets us scale and test.

Creators blur the whole fucking thing by being creative, talent, production and distribution at once.

Then we learn.

And make the next thing better.

Not:

Creative makes thing.

Media distributes thing.

Campaign ends.

PowerPoint arrives.

Everyone promises to apply the learnings next financial year.

Before You Boost It, Ask One Question

Not:

“How much budget have we got left?”

Not:

“Can we get the CPM down?”

Not even:

“How many more people can we reach?”

Ask:

Why would more people care?

If you've got a good answer, brilliant.

Spend.

Scale it.

Put the thing everywhere.

But if the answer is essentially:

“Well, they haven't seen it enough yet…”

Maybe.

Or maybe they saw it.

And kept scrolling.

Because paid media can make your creative bigger.

It can make it faster.

It can put it in front of millions of people.

It can give a great idea the distribution it deserves.

But it cannot make people love something simply because you paid for the introduction.

You don't get $50,000 worth of love.

Sometimes you just get $50,000 worth of more people ignoring you.