Why running more ads isn’t the same as running more creative variance

In the non-customer accounts we audited this year we flagged 71.4% of them with lack of creative variance as a central point hurting their growth.

Performance can flatline even when budget and audience stay exactly the same, if the underlying creative ideas stop changing. Running more ads is not the same lever as running more creative variance. Mistaking one for the other is one of the most common, and most fixable, causes of a plateau.

What do we actually mean by creative variance?

Creative variance used to mean churning out a lot of similar creative with small variations: different copy, different CTAs, different products featured, all built from the same underlying shoot or concept. It worked well for a long time. It was easy to reproduce, and it let brands stick to a consistent style.

What variance means now is different. It’s driven by how Meta’s Andromeda update assesses creative, though the underlying logic has always held true, variance means variety in how you communicate the message. It is not the same message restated with ten slight tweaks.

The same product might need a glossy studio shoot that shows off its finish and key features in one execution, a model wearing or using it in another, footage of it in the wild in a third, a rougher UGC-style clip in a fourth, and a founder or team member explaining why they made it in a fifth. Each version appeals to a different type of person within your target audience. Someone who responds to a polished studio shot rarely responds to UGC in the same way, and different people respond to different formats at different times of day, on different platforms, and on different devices.

Why has creative variance become more important?

Meta’s Andromeda update is the main driver, though the underlying principle isn’t new. Market conditions and audience behaviour sit largely outside a brand’s control. Creative variance is one of the clearest, most controllable levers a paid media team actually has.

How do you know if you have a creative variance problem?

Start with a simple, vibe-based check – does your ad account look very similar to itself over time? If it looks similar to you, it almost certainly looks similar to the platform. A common pattern is running one shoot per season, then spending the following three or four months producing variations on that single shoot. That’s usually where performance issues start.

A more structured way to check:

1. Bucket your existing creative into 4-5 pillars. Not every pillar applies to every brand, but most fall into: studio product shots, studio model shots, outdoor or lifestyle model shots, UGC (rougher, more organic-style content), and founder or internal advocate content. The exact buckets can flex by sector. An app might swap “outdoor lifestyle” for in-app demo footage; a travel brand might swap it for footage of the destinations it sells.

2. Check volume and spend by bucket, month by month. Most brands find they’re massively over-indexed in one pillar and doing little or nothing in the others.

3. Look inside an individual ad set. If the large majority of spend within one audience/ad-set bundle is going to just one or two creatives, that’s a signal worth acting on. Meta has likely bundled your creative together as effectively the same idea, and is only serving the version or two it rates highest. Ten product images built from the same shoot usually get treated this way. Five genuinely diverse creatives are far more likely to see spend spread across them.

Does creative variance matter equally at every funnel stage?

No. Creative variance matters far more for top-of-funnel, prospecting audiences than it does for retargeting. Someone who doesn’t know your brand yet, and doesn’t recognise your usual tone or style, needs several different ways of being reached before one lands. Skip the variety here and you end up serving the same narrow set of people again and again, without ever finding the rest of your addressable audience.

Once someone already knows your brand, variance matters less. Retargeting audiences respond well to creative that leans into what already converts – more product-focused, less exploratory.

The same logic applies across geography. What works in Germany won’t necessarily work in the UK, and a winning approach in one market won’t automatically translate to another. Regional best practices exist, but testing a genuine spread of approaches per market beats assuming one region’s winner will travel.

What’s stopping most brands from diversifying?

Production cost. It’s the single biggest reason brands keep repeating the same creative instead of genuinely diversifying. Repeat the same shoot and you save on production. You also give up the performance upside that comes with variety.

Being in-house doesn’t solve this by itself. An in-house or internal team is typically more nimble to work with, but nimbleness doesn’t automatically produce creative diversity. The same tendency to repeat what already exists shows up in-house just as often as it does with an external partner.

How do you measure whether it’s actually working?

Look past ad spend and ROAS in isolation. Track investment across each creative pillar, including what it costs to produce, and weigh performance against that fuller picture. A creative type that drives strong engagement or conversion can still be the wrong one to keep investing in if its production cost eats the return.

Different creative types can also succeed against different goals. UGC might drive excellent engagement while converting poorly, or the reverse. Check that regularly and independently, or the platform ends up making that judgement for you without any oversight of your own.

Final takeaway: Creative variance is a lever a brand actually controls. It needs measuring on its own terms, cost to produce and performance by pillar, checked regularly rather than assumed from spend alone.