Creatives in Paid Media: How to Collaborate with Design

In Paid Media, creatives serve as the visual touchpoints that shape your audience’s first impression. Requesting the right creatives from the design team is not just about formats—it’s about understanding how each type of creative supports specific funnel objectives, such as driving conversions, retention, or awareness, aligning with the customer’s decision-making cycle.

🔍 4 Types of Creatives in Paid Media:

Social Proof and Human Element

When the goal is to build trust, creatives that feature customer testimonials or show the product being used in a real-life context are invaluable. These creatives establish an emotional connection and enhance credibility.

Final Result and Transformation

Images that depict a "before and after" or highlight the final result provide clarity and a visual promise. These work well for products or services that significantly transform the customer’s experience.

Problem Hook + Solution

Presenting a problem and offering a clear, visual solution captures attention and often improves click-through rates. This direct approach highlights how your product or service addresses specific needs.

FOMO and Special Offers

Urgency and exclusivity create impact. Using creatives that emphasize limited-time promotions or special incentives can be the key to accelerating conversions during high-competition periods.

🎯 How to Request Creatives from the Design Team

To maximize the impact of creatives in your campaigns, the first step is to clearly define your audience segments and the specific objectives of each campaign. Before making a request, consider:

The Target Audience

What truly motivates your customers? A "Social Proof" creative is ideal for audiences that need reassurance, while a "Problem Hook + Solution" creative is more effective for those looking to solve a specific problem.

The Right Format

Is a short video, an image carousel, or a static image more effective? The format choice is critical and should be based on how your audience consumes content. A great tip is to analyze what other companies are advertising.

Once these needs are identified, communicate them clearly to the design team. Be sure to include details such as specific dimensions, mobile-friendly text, and the visual approach that best conveys your campaign’s message. Precision in the details saves time and improves the final quality of the creatives.

🛠️ Conclusion: High-Performing Creatives Are Planned, Not Left to Chance

Producing strategically designed creatives—aligned with data-driven insights, clear objectives, and brand consistency—will significantly improve results. With proper planning and clear communication with the design team, you can enhance campaign performance while strengthening your brand message with your audience. A well-chosen creative is one of your main differentiators in the digital space.

General Principles of CRO for Paid Media Professionals

Conversion Rate Optimization (CRO) is an essential process today for maximising return. But how can we improve it? Below, I present the fundamental principles of CRO, adapted to the context of Paid Media.

1. Attention: It all begins with capturing the user's attention. The relevance of the message is key. An advert can catch the eye, but if it doesn’t connect with the user’s real needs and desires, it will be lost.

2. Context: It’s not enough to capture attention; it must be done at the right moment and with the right message. This means understanding the customer journey and adapting campaigns to align with the user’s intent. Why is this important? Because a message that is out of context can be ignored or, worse, create a negative perception of the brand.

3. Clarity: A basic but often underestimated principle. Clarity in the message and what you offer removes friction and reduces uncertainty. A user who fully understands what is being offered and the benefits they will gain is much more likely to convert.

4. Congruence: Congruence ensures that all elements of the campaign—from the ad to the landing page—work in perfect harmony. Any disconnect in this flow can create distrust and negatively affect conversions. Have you ever wondered why a campaign with good copy, good creatives, good search terms, and a high CTR in the ad still doesn’t convert on the landing page? Here’s your potential answer.

5. Credibility: Don’t underestimate the power of credibility. Testimonials, case studies, and social proof strengthen the user’s trust in your offering. Nowadays, consumers are more informed and sceptical than ever before, and credibility can set you apart from the competition.

6. Closing: This is where all the previous work is either validated or lost. A clear and compelling call to action is what turns that attention into a concrete action. Are you using the right CTAs in your campaigns?

7. Continuation: Optimization doesn’t end with the conversion. You need to think about the post-conversion experience and how to keep those new customers engaged and satisfied. Are you nurturing your customers to foster loyalty and future conversions?

8. CRO isn’t just a technical discipline; it’s a way of understanding marketing that puts the user at the heart of every strategy.

For those looking to maximise the impact of their Paid Media campaigns, it’s time to dig in deeper into this topic and apply it strategically.

Have you had any particular CRO strategies that have worked well for you?

Why backlinks don't always improve SEO

Backlinks are not always going to improve SEO performance. It is true that these links, due to their nature, can provide us with Link Juice from another website we are linking to, however, it is advisable to be cautious due to possible SPAM campaigns, as they can damage our SEO positioning.

The fundamentals of proper SEO planning should generally be focused on linkbaiting, especially when starting from scratch, therefore, objectives focused on the generation of backlinks or inbound links should be part of the secondary objectives of the strategy.

In case of positioning backlinks as the central objective of the SEO strategy, the evolution of this strategy may tend towards Black Hat SEO methodologies, and ultimately increase the risk of being exposed to penalties by search engines such as Google.

If we position backlink generation as a secondary objective, it can be achieved through the following methods:

• Plan a strategy focused on linkbaiting, as it increases the likelihood of generating backlinks with low risk of exposure to search engine penalties.

• Have an optimised and well-structured web architecture, as this will make it easier to determine which backlinks are more or less suitable for the specific section of the web architecture.

• Have an optimised UX design in place, which will be necessary to increase the naturalness of the linking, and reduce the risk of exposure to search engine penalties.

• Establish an evaluation criterion for backlinks, thus reducing the risk of generating low PageRank backlinks and/or backlinks on topics unrelated to those you deal with on your website. This criterion should take into account both the transfer of Link Juice, as the positioning that is granted, and the primary function of which the backlink or inbound link is characterised.

• Another important aspect of backlinks is dofollow and nofollow links. The cases in which dofollow links would benefit in terms of SEO positioning would be when Link Juice is transmitted to one's own website from a domain with a high and consistent PageRank, and whose subject of that domain is similar to one's own website. Therefore, nofollow links are useful to prevent the transfer of Link Juice, either from one's own website to an external domain, or from an external domain to one's own website.

Interesting metrics can be obtained from SEMrush, and there are also useful Chrome extensions such as "SEOquake", "LinkMiner" and "SEO Analysis & Website Review".

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