Your Paid Social Creative Isn’t Working And Here’s Why

A year is a long old time in the marketing landscape, especially us lucky lot that get to call social home. In the last year alone we’ve seen Metaverse’s come and go, new platforms (hi Threads 👋), entire name changes (I’m still not over typing “formerly Twitter'' to every conversation X is mentioned), and new features galore.

But the most impactful of these changes to brands is the advancement of AI to power media platforms algorithms. Paid social media buyers usually see extremes on either end of the spectrum when it comes to creative output - brands investing into big campaign ideas and moments, with social being one of many battlegrounds, and brands neglecting creative entirely, focussed instead on growth driving paid media tactics. But with this change in how social algorithms operate, being on either end of this spectrum will be leaving you exposed to plummeting performance.

The very nature of how creative is used on social media advertising has changed. It’s not about turning up in the right place, at the right time with outstanding creative that wins hearts and minds. Today the creative asset itself determines where, who and how you show up at all. And because so much of a good paid social strategy is dependent on the content itself, your approach has to be formulaic enough to measure its performance, without compromising on that creative edge that makes a user actually care to stop from scrolling. Content is hard to measure, but paid social is built to be measured, so identifying a way of combining the two can drive real, insightful learnings that unlock incredible potential.

A formulaic framework:
For brands that are starting out on this journey, step one is to apply a formulaic framework for creative testing to establish a foundation of learnings to build from. When working with video, applying a modular approach to creation can yield great analysis on paid media creative. Slicing the components of your overall messaging down into segments - whether it’s pain points/desires, social proofing, the proposition as the solution, scarcity - and then building multiple asset variations with each section's orders mixed up.

Measuring their performance from your primary KPIs, and additional storytelling metrics like hook and hold rates help you learn about messaging hierarchy, who your ideal customer is and what motivates them. The same theory can be applied to other ad formats, although storytelling metrics are less rich, so isolating each testing variable is doubly important for learnings. (There’s even ways to give your catalogues a boost through creative learning taken from your strategy, but stay tuned for part 2 to learn more on that…)

Creative diversity:
Step 2 involves applying the knowledge you gain in step 1 about your community and their behaviours a level further. Using the insights gained to inform new creative styles, formats and innovations that unlock and engage new audiences, without needing to change anything else in your media strategies. Remembering that ad content signals the algorithm and determines how it’s used, so neglecting step 2 and leaning too far into formula and rules and data, i.e. “statics talking about pain point 1 worked well, let’s brief more of those” can actually lead to negative results, shrink your audience pool down and stop you from being able to effectively scale performance. Ultimately, creative has to be creative in order to retain relevance, authenticity and excitement to the human on the other end. That shouldn’t be compromised in the endeavour to gather data and influence performance.

In summary, creative is not just the key; but the entire vehicle to success. Marketers who fail to embrace this idea, and continue to rely too heavily on their strategic media buying smarts, risk being left behind in a rapidly evolving landscape. So too do marketers and brands who fail to approach creative strategically, with a long term and dynamic lens. Paid social is a unique medium that can teach us so much about our customers; how to capture their attention, engage them, convert them, retain them and make them lifelong fans, on and offline. When used correctly, the opportunity for brands to succeed is endless.

So why are brands still defaulting to TV?

Comfort.
Familiarity.
A (false) sense of scale?

But what if just 10% of your TV budget went to Meta?

Say you’re investing £5M in TV. Reallocating just 10% of that to Meta could reach 4.4M unique users at best-practice frequency, across a six-week campaign. And that reach wouldn’t be theoretical. It would be:

Trackable
Optimisable
Tailored to real human behaviour in real time

That’s the difference. Social media doesn’t just reach people. It tells you who’s engaging, what’s resonating, and where to go next.

Still think social’s just a support act?

The University of Oxford’s ‘No Silver Bullet’ study, the largest academic investigation into brand-building effectiveness, found the most effective media mix is TV, Meta and YouTube. Not just one. Not two. All three. But used strategically. We’ve long seen where the attention’s heading. It’s why we brought Be a Bear into the Spin fold, the YouTube and audience strategy specialists who help us go bigger, broader, and sharper across channels. Because in 2025, full-funnel doesn’t mean “a bit of everything.” It means knowing how to make each channel work harder.

And when Meta owns the four most-used daily apps in the UK (👋 Instagram, Facebook, Messenger and WhatsApp), the opportunity to amplify ATL impact and extend reach is unmatched.

And here’s the kicker…

Social doesn’t just scale your ATL. It adds lift:

Greater unaided awareness
Higher consideration
Lower cost per acquisition

We’re talking social-first adaptation, where we translate ATL creative into a high-performance suite of assets designed to scale, test, and convert. It’s how we helped Brothers Cider exceed their reach targets with 12 modular assets from one TVC. It’s how we helped People’s Postcode Lottery turn a brand shoot into a DR sign-up engine on Meta.

So what makes social more measurable?

Unlike TV, social doesn’t rely on panels or extrapolation. You get live, platform-native performance data across every asset, audience, and placement.

Here’s what that looks like in practice:

Creative-level breakdowns: See which specific edits, hooks, or formats are performing across Meta, TikTok, and YouTube.
Funnel-stage metrics: Track not just awareness, but how assets influence consideration, intent, and conversion, mapped to real user journeys.
Custom conversions & pixel data: Set up granular, first-party tracking to understand true ROI beyond surface metrics.
Holdout testing: Run incrementality studies to isolate impact - what would have happened without paid social?
Creative scoring & fatigue tracking: Know when an asset’s burning out before your performance drops.

Through SpaRk, our ad creative solution, we use this data to iterate in real time. We test modular creative, scale what works, and retire what doesn’t. It’s performance and brand-building, working together.

And here’s the stat that says it all: 56% of action outcomes on Meta are driven by creative alone.

TL;DR: If you're still debating “TV or social”... you’re asking the wrong question.

The right one?
‍How much of your TV budget could work harder on social?
We’re here to help you find out.

Blog

UK Junk Food Ad Ban: An Advertising Challenge or an Opportunity?

In October 2025, the UK government will implement a landmark ban on junk food advertising across social media and TV, aiming to curb childhood obesity and promote healthier eating habits. This move presents a significant challenge for brands in the food and beverage industry, particularly those reliant on digital marketing to engage consumers. However, as history has shown, where restrictions arise, innovation follows. In this piece, we’ll explore creative, compliant, and effective ways for brands to navigate these new regulations—maintaining brand visibility, consumer engagement, and continued growth in a rapidly evolving advertising landscape.

Advertising restrictions are nothing new—industries from tobacco to alcohol, gambling, sex, and pharmaceuticals have all faced regulatory hurdles, yet the most successful brands have thrived by bending these rules creatively. Many tactics involve focusing budgets into less overt paid mediums, such as event sponsorships both offline (sports, festivals) and online (live-streamed events, YouTube influencer partnerships). This is something we’ve seen in the alcohol and gambling industries and isn’t currently withheld under any advertising regulations. But unlike traditional paid advertising methods, these do come with a catch in attribution complexities. Which isn’t always so great for the marketer. In the DTC pharmaceutical and sex industries, advertisers have explored creative ways to alter the focus of messaging away from the product and onto the emotion-led outcome that having the product provides to appeal to the consumer. Within some regulatory clauses, this allows advertisers to remain active on paid media channels, particularly on social, which is more lax than TV. Spin successfully navigates this with our client, Lovehoney, by creatively concealing their products in normal everyday environments (i.e. hiding the Rose within a bouquet of real roses) or using the products as background props to a scene otherwise focused on emotion-led lifestyle messaging, i.e. connecting with your partner & lifting your mood. These techniques not only allow us to continue using social and digital channels as paid media channels, but access data that allows us to optimise and grow these channels as revenue-driving heavy lifters.

Having advertising restrictions can actually be a blessing when it comes to using paid social as a communication channel. Paid social is a rare hotbed in the available marketing mix that brands can harvest zero-party data from to draw insights into their consumer behaviour, engagement, and motivations. When intentionally used in this way, it can be a great marketing tool to optimise other channels. Taking the above Lovehoney example, knowing advertising efforts must be focused on emotion-led messaging, we can focus in on a handful of problem/solution combinations when crafting our creative. The data passed back from the algorithm after launch highlights the winners amongst each subdivision of our audience, informing subsequent creative thinking to optimise activity but also providing valuable insights that can be applied to CRM segments, website copy and UX, organic social, and influencer partnerships.

Instead of seeing the 2025 junk food ad ban as a roadblock, brands should view it as an opportunity to innovate. When regulations tighten, the most successful brands adapt—often emerging stronger, more strategic, and more connected to their audience. By shifting focus to influencer partnerships, sponsorships, and emotion-driven messaging on paid social, as well as increasing their exposure on unaffected marketing mediums such as organic social, brands can maintain visibility and continue to connect with their communities while also gaining deeper consumer insights. Those who embrace this shift early will not only stay compliant but will also future-proof their marketing strategies in an increasingly regulated digital landscape. The key is to think beyond traditional paid ads and start investing in creativity, storytelling, and authentic engagement—because the brands that evolve are the ones that win.

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The Roadmap to Winning on Social

What Is the Future Trend Roadmap?

The Future Trend Roadmap is designed to help businesses and brands navigate the evolving landscape of consumer behaviour and cultural dynamics, with a healthy dose of social-first thinking. Whether it’s new tech disrupting the status quo or an unexpected cultural shift, this roadmap helps you plan for what’s coming, rather than scrambling to catch up. It’s the secret ingredient behind strategies that make brands stand out, win followers, and drive meaningful engagement.

What Makes It a Must-Have?

Consumer Behaviour Analysis

What’s driving your audience today? What might inspire them tomorrow? The roadmap dives deep into these questions, decoding purchasing patterns, lifestyle shifts, and even the memes that somehow turn into movements.

Technological Innovations

From AI-assisted creativity to the next big social platform (yes, it’s probably not just Threads), staying ahead of technology trends keeps brands nimble. Think AR shopping experiences or gamified ad formats that make the scroll-stopping experience even more dynamic.

Cultural Context

Social media doesn’t exist in a vacuum. It’s a reflection of—and a driver for—broader societal changes. Whether it’s sustainability, inclusivity, or the rise of anti-trends like ‘digital detoxing’, understanding this context gives brands the edge in staying authentic.

Market Shifts

From algorithm updates to shifting economic tides, it’s about being ready for anything. Your social media strategy should adapt as quickly as TikTok’s trends page—and with just as much creativity.

Why This Matters for Social Media

Social media is the ultimate cultural snapshot, and if your brand isn’t keeping up with trends, it risks falling out of relevance faster than yesterday’s viral dance. By embedding trend analysis into your strategy, you move from reactive posting to proactive planning. That’s how you create content that doesn’t just perform—it leads conversations.

Proactive Strategy

The brands that win on social don’t just follow—they lead. With insights from the roadmap, you can set the tone for what’s trending, rather than just hopping on it.

Audience Connection

In the fight for attention, understanding what your audience cares about (and where they spend their time) is non-negotiable.

Staying Agile

Trends move at the speed of a double-tap, and your campaigns should too. But agility doesn’t mean chaos—it means being prepared to pivot with precision.

At Spin Brands, we live and breathe this roadmap because it’s the foundation of smart, impactful social strategy. Whether you’re building a TikTok presence from scratch or planning a campaign that redefines your brand voice, knowing what’s next is the key to standing out. The future isn’t just something to adapt to—it’s an opportunity to create.

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