Nearly Half of Meta Creator Ads...

Almost half of all creator ads on Meta don’t adhere to social media advertising best practices, according to a new report from CreativeX. 

The report analyzed 1.6 million ads, equivalent to $2 billion worth of ad spend, to look at the performance of creator ads. CreativeX looked at a mix of creators’ and brands’ ads across Facebook, Instagram, and TikTok. The report defines creator ads as content made and posted to creators’ accounts.

CreativeX’s technology vets creative content, and the company’s clients include Unilever and Nestlé. In the past 12 to 18 months, the company saw an influx of creator content in its system. Previously, most of the content the company analyzed was made and posted to brands’ own social media accounts, CreativeX’s founder and CEO Anastasia Leng told ADWEEK.

“We became really interested in how brands were treating creator content differently from how they were treating their own branded content and how those decisions impacted creator content effectiveness,” she said. 

The report suggests that creators are not using long-established best practices for social media like length and sound. Leng said the report shows a “false paradox between authenticity and suitability or effectiveness.” Up until now, marketers assumed that creators’ ads don’t need to adhere to best practices because creators’ ads are more seen as more authentic than brands’ ads.

“Creators excel at humanising content and driving engagement, but there’s a clear opportunity to improve brand visibility and elevate brand messages,” Afke van de Klashort, vp of digital, media and ecommerce at Unilever Foods, in a statement.

For example, Meta has advised advertisers to mention a brand within the first three seconds of an ad since at least 2018, said Leng. Some marketers assumed that because users watch creators’ content for longer periods of time that these rules didn’t apply to creator ads. CreativeX’s report found that 14% of users watch creator ads past the first three seconds, dispelling the assumption that creator ads abide by different rules. 

Additionally, 51% of creator ads on Meta and TikTok are branded in the first three seconds, leaving 49% of creators’ Meta and TikTok ads unbranded within the first three seconds. CreativeX’s report found that 45% of creator ads didn’t mention the brand within the first three seconds and also weren’t watched past the first three seconds.

The creator ads that were branded in the first three seconds had a 16% higher video completion rate, according to CreativeX’s analysis.