Creative testing
Definition
The number of genuinely different ideas put in front of the market in a period, and the discipline of learning from what comes back. On platforms that choose their own targeting, the creative is the main variable left to the advertiser.
How it works
The market answers every idea with numbers the account already collects; the discipline is shipping enough distinct ideas for those answers to teach anything. The unit that matters is the idea. A recoloured or re-cropped version of an existing ad is the same idea resubmitted, and it teaches nothing. My sorting test: lay last quarter’s ads on a table and have a stranger sort them into piles by what each one argues. The pile count is the true number of tests. Divide the quarter’s ad spend in DKK by that count for the price the account paid per idea it learned from.
What to watch for
Open the ads sorted by launch date. If recent months hold crops and recolours of one concept, the account has been rehearsing a single idea and reporting it as testing. Look for decisions: a test that ends with nothing switched off produced no learning, whatever the report says. Then ask how a new concept gets made and how long it takes from idea to live; that answer is the account’s ceiling, because the scarce input is production capacity, and a bigger budget adds nothing when there is no new idea to spend it on.
The question you ask
“How many distinct concepts went live last quarter, and which ones did we switch off afterwards?”