Learn/New ads
What a creative strategist does, week by week
Job posts list skills. This is the week: what a creative strategist reads on Monday, studies on Tuesday, briefs on Wednesday and ships by Friday, and the one decision each day exists to make.
The short answerA creative strategist decides what a brand’s next ads should say and show. Each week they read how the last ads did, study what the market runs, write the brief, plan the versions, and get the set approved and live. They are judged on whether the ads they planned did their job, not on how many they made.
- The week starts with reading what ran, because every other decision depends on it.
- A competitor’s long-running ad shows what they kept paying for, never proof that it works.
- Meta’s own guidance asks for a variety of ads, so the job is planning versions, not one perfect ad.2
- The brief is the strategist’s real output: everyone else works from it.
On this page
The title means different things at different companies. At a brand it sits between the people who buy the media and the people who make the ads; at an agency it may cover five brands at once. Underneath, the week is the same: find out what worked, decide what to say next, and make sure what gets made says it. Below is that week, one day at a time, with the page that goes deeper on each part.
- Access to the brand’s ad account numbers, read-only is enough.
- The brand’s rules: logo, colours, fonts, claims it may make, the legal line.
- A place to keep the ads worth studying, so they are still there next month.
Step 1Monday: read what ran last week
Start with the brand’s own numbers, before anyone else’s ads. The question is not “which ad won” but “what did each ad do, and why might it have done it”. Two numbers answer most of that for video: how many people stopped, and how many stayed.
| What to read | What it tells you | Where it goes deeper |
|---|---|---|
| Hook rate | Whether the opening stopped people | How to read hook rate and hold rate |
| Hold rate | Whether the rest kept them | How to read hook rate and hold rate |
| Frequency over time | Whether the same people are seeing it too often | How to tell when an ad has tired |
| Results by placement | Whether a size let the ad down | Ad sizes for every platform |
Meta reports 3-second video plays and ThruPlays, from which hook and hold rate are worked out,1 and frequency per person.3
Write down one sentence per ad that ran: what it tried, what happened, what you think it means. That page of sentences is worth more than any dashboard, because next week’s brief is written from it.
Step 2Tuesday: study what the market runs
Then look outward. Meta’s Ad Library lists every ad running on Facebook and Instagram, searchable by brand, so a competitor’s whole current set is public.4 What matters is not one ad but the pattern: which ideas a brand keeps paying for month after month, and which they tried once and dropped.
Save the ads worth studying as the ads themselves, not as links: an ad that stops running disappears from the library, and a link to it goes with it. The ad library here keeps them by brand and category with the day each was last seen.
Step 3Wednesday: write the brief
Everything from Monday and Tuesday ends up in one page: the brief. It says what the next ads must make someone think, which facts they must carry, who they are for, and where they will run. A designer, an editor, a creator or a generator can all work from it; nobody can work from a strategist’s head.
Creative brief for an ad. Fill this in before anyone writes a shot. The script, the frames and every size are checked against it.
| Fill in | What to write |
|---|---|
| Brand and product | The product exactly: its name, the variant, and the photos that show it. |
| The one sentence | What someone should think after seeing the ad, in plain words. |
| Who it is for | The person the ad speaks to, and where they will see it. |
| The offer and the price | As approved, word for word. |
| The legal line | In full, and who approves any change to it. |
| Facts the ad must carry | Every claim, each one true of this product. |
| What it must never say | Claims the product cannot make, and words the brand does not use. |
| Placements and sizes | From the media plan: each placement, its shape and its size. |
| Length | For video: the length each placement needs. |
| Parts every size must carry | Usually the logo, the product, the price and the legal line. |
| Brand rules | Where the rules live, and any that matter most for this ad. |
| Landing page | The page the ad links to. It must sell what the ad shows. |
| Who approves what | Each approver and what they check: the brand, the claims, the legal line. |
| Dates | When the frames, the cut and the full set are due, and the launch date. |
Download it as a Word file (it opens in Google Docs and Pages too).
The whole method, from the brief to finished frames and clips, is in how to make an ad from a brief. If the idea comes from an ad that already works, how to remake an ad that works keeps its structure and changes everything that belonged to the other brand.
Step 4Thursday: plan the versions, not one ad
Meta’s delivery works best when it has a variety of ads to match to different people, and Meta says so in its own guidance.2 So the strategist does not plan one ad; they plan a set: a few openings for the same idea, each cut for the placements the plan buys.
| Idea | Openings | Placements | Pieces to make |
|---|---|---|---|
| One product, one promise | 3 | Feed, Stories, Reels | 9 |
| The same, in a second language | 3 | Feed, Stories, Reels | 9 |
Example. An example week: one idea, three openings, three placements. Your brief and media plan set the numbers.
This is where most of the week’s hours go if each size is made by hand. A set is many shapes of the same few ads, and keeping the logo, the price and the legal line right in each is the work resizing for every placement and changing one line on every size cover.
Step 5Friday: get it approved and live
The set goes to whoever signs off, with every size side by side, so the approval is of the set and not of one master. Notes come back on the page, the fixes go into every size at once, and the approved files go to whoever runs the media, named by placement and size.
Ad approval sheet. Send this with the set. One sheet per version, so the yes belongs to the version that will run.
| Fill in | What to write |
|---|---|
| The set and its version | Its name and version, for example “Summer sale, version 3”. |
| Where to see it | One link where every size can be seen side by side. |
| Sizes in the set | Every size, named by placement and size. |
| Approver: the work | Who checks that the set is complete and matches the brief. |
| Approver: the brand | Who checks the look, the words and the product. |
| Approver: the claims and legal line | Who checks every claim and the small print. |
| Notes due by | The date notes are needed, worked back from the launch date. |
| How to leave notes | On the size they are about, one note per change. |
| Approved by | Each approver’s name, and the date of their yes. |
| Approved version | The exact version approved. Any change after it goes back. |
| Platform review | When the set is sent to the platform, allowing time for its review. |
| Landing page ready | The page the ads link to shows the same offer, from launch. |
Download it as a Word file (it opens in Google Docs and Pages too).
The way to stop this taking a week of email is in how to get a set approved. On Monday, the cycle starts again with what these ads did.
Common mistakes
- Starting the week with competitors’ ads instead of your own numbers.You copy what you see instead of fixing what you know.
- Reading a competitor’s long-running ad as proof it works.It means they kept paying for it, nothing more.
- Briefing one perfect ad.The plan buys several placements and the delivery wants variety; one ad fills neither.
- Approving the master and letting the sizes go out unseen.Most mistakes live in the sizes.
eonik keeps the ads you study on a moodboard, makes the set from the brief with your real product, lays every size out and carries one change to all of them, then sends the set for approval in a browser. Making ads on your Mac is free.
Get eonik for Mac →Questions
What skills does a creative strategist need?
Reading numbers without overreading them, studying ads with a clear eye, and writing a brief other people can work from. Taste matters, but the job is turning what happened into what to make next.
How is a creative strategist different from a designer or an editor?
The strategist decides what the ads should say and show, and why; the designer and editor decide how it looks and is cut. In small teams one person does both, which is why the brief matters even when you are briefing yourself.
How is it different from a media buyer?
The media buyer decides where the ads run and what is spent on them. The strategist decides what the ads are. They read the same numbers for different decisions.
What tools does a creative strategist use?
The ad account’s reporting for the numbers, an ad library to study the market, a brief template, and whatever the team makes ads in. The tool matters less than keeping each part of the week written down.
Sources
- About video ad metrics on Facebook and Instagram, Meta Business Help Center. 3-second video plays, ThruPlays and plays at 25% to 100%.Checked 26 Oct 2026
- Performance marketing on Meta, Meta for Business. Build a variety of ad creative so delivery can match the message to the person.Checked 2 Nov 2026
- Frequency, Meta Business Help Center. Impressions divided by reach, and what a rising frequency with falling results may mean.Checked 26 Oct 2026
- Meta Ad Library, Meta. Every active ad on Meta, searchable, within 24 hours of its first impression.Checked 26 Oct 2026