Finding Creative Inspiration
No artist or creative does their work in a vacuum.
They all keep their eyes and ears open for things to inspire them.
Ad creatives are no different.
In fact, it's even more important because you're spending money to test ad creatives. So you might as well try to remix winning formats so your money doesn't go to waste.
There are a few ways to gather inspiration:
- Ad channels themselves: The Meta Ad Library and LinkedIn Ad Library let you peak at ads that any company is running.
- Creative inspiration tools: Tools like Foreplay and Atria let you browse a big library of ads.
- Social media: Sometimes the best inspiration organically pops into your feed.
- Databases and galleries: Random sites have created databases of ads.
Let's dive into each of those now:
Creative inspiration tools
We'll start with creative inspiration tools because they not only help you discover great ads, they also allow you to save great ads you stumble upon on social media and in the ad libraries into boards.
You can then use those as inspiration boards for yourself, for your team, or for your clients.
Here are the two tools we recommend:
- Foreplay: The tool we use internally with our agency to gather inspiration to use internally and to share with clients.
- Atria: A competitor to Foreplay that also has some analytics tooling (at additional cost).
Here's a walkthrough of how to use Foreplay:
Meta and LinkedIn Ad Libraries
Here are the links to the ad libraries:
These tools let you search for the ads being run by specific companies.
Here's a walkthrough of how to do just that:
If you decided to use Foreplay or Atria, then save any great ads you find to your boards.
Social media
How to tell you're a real marketer:
You specifically stop to watch the ads as you browse social media. AND you save the ones you find interesting.
Whenever you're scrolling through Instagram, TikTok, LinkedIn, YouTube, or wherever take note of an ad that:
- Catches your attention
- Makes you stop scrolling
- Keeps you watching until the end
- Has you questioning whether you should click or not
- Or, is just creative or interesting
Then you can save the ads to Foreplay for future reference. You do that by forwarding the ad to the Foreplay instagram account (assuming you linked your Instagram to your Foreplay account).
Databases and galleries
Various websites or influencers out there have curated ads:
- Adfolio: Database of great b2b ads.
- Ads of the World: Ads from big brands.
- Commarts: Ads from big brands.
- The Ad Professor: An influencer who shares a lot of ad inspo
Great artists steal
Don't create in a vacuum.
Finding inspiration should always be a part of your creative process.
