How Going Static in a Feed Full of Video Gave CreativiU Its Best-Ever ROAS
By Kevin Veitia
- Client
- CreativiU, a subscription library of video courses in quilting, crochet, sewing and other crafts
- Founder
- John Behr
- Channel
- Meta Ads
- Timeframe
- 2025
The challenge
CreativiU, founded by John Behr, is something like Netflix for arts and crafts: one subscription to video courses in quilting, crochet, sewing and more.
Its earlier campaigns had run produced video ads. Some worked, but results were spotty, and video is slow and expensive to make, which makes it hard to test enough ideas to learn why.
By 2025, the platform had changed under everyone's feet, too. Since Meta's Andromeda update, broad targeting is the default and the ad itself does most of the targeting. The old playbook of finding the right audience first no longer applied.
What we did
Mapped three kinds of competitors
We looked at who CreativiU was really competing with for attention in the feed, in three groups:
- Direct competitors: other subscription craft-course platforms.
- Adjacent competitors: businesses in neighboring industries chasing the same people, like the brands selling yarn and quilting supplies.
- Inventory competitors: anyone bidding on the same slice of the feed, whatever they sell. For women aged 35 to 50, that includes giants like Shein and Temu.
There's only so much ad space in one person's feed, and all three groups are bidding on it.
Counted the formats
Across all three groups, about 95% of the ads were video. Only about 5% were static images.
Then zagged
When everyone zigs, you zag. A format almost nobody is running is underpriced inventory. A static image in a feed full of video also looks different enough to stop the scroll. And statics are cheaper and faster to make than UGC video, so we could test more messages, find the ones that fit each audience sooner, and scale them.
Let the creative do the targeting
The account ran as one ABO campaign with separate ad sets, each built on a jobs-to-be-done framework: a different reason someone hires CreativiU, such as turning a craft into extra income, slowing down with something calming, or getting better at a craft they already love. Targeting stayed broad. The creative in each ad set told Meta who it was for.
Results
- 3x ROAS, the highest the account had ever reached
- A creative system built on a format that's quicker to make and test than video
The lesson travels. Before you make your next ad, look at what everyone in your customer's feed is already running. If they're all doing the same thing, the cheapest attention is in doing something else.
What you can take from this
- Map three kinds of competitors: direct, adjacent and inventory. All three bid on the same feed.
- Count formats, not just messages. If 95% of the feed is video, static is underpriced.
- Statics are faster to test, and more tests means you find what works sooner.
- Since Andromeda, split ad sets by the job your product does, and let broad targeting and the creative do the rest.
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