How do we brief a designer or creator so the ads actually perform?

By Dan BartleyUpdated 11 October 20263 minute read

The short answer

Brief the idea, not the layout. A brief that produces ads that perform names one buyer, one angle, the hook for the first second, the proof, the offer and the format, shows the ads it should learn from, and says how the result will be judged. Leave the craft to the designer or creator, and keep it to one page per concept.

What goes in a performance creative brief?

Everything the maker needs to decide what to show first, and nothing that dictates the layout. One page per concept is enough.

A one-page brief for one concept, with an example for a sofa

Field	What to write	Example
Goal and metric	What the ad must achieve and how it will be judged	New buyers at a CPA under $60
Buyer	One kind of person, in a sentence	Renters furnishing a small first apartment
Angle	The single reason to buy	Fits a small room without looking small
Hook	What the first second or first line must show or say	The sofa sliding into a narrow living room
Proof	What makes the claim believable	The width on screen, and a line from a review
Offer	Price, deal or delivery promise, if any	The delivery timeframe
Format and sizes	Static, video or carousel, and the placements	A 9:16 video and a 4:5 static
References	Winning and losing ads to learn from	Last month’s best ad and two competitor ads
Must and must not	Brand rules and claims to avoid	Exact fabric colour, and no claims the product page cannot back up

How is briefing a UGC creator different from briefing a designer?

A creator needs talking points and hook options, not a script. A designer needs final copy and the imagery, with freedom over the layout.

Creators: the product in hand early, two or three hook options to choose from, the points to cover in their own words, the shots you need, raw footage, and paid usage rights agreed up front
Designers: final copy, the imagery to use, every size required, the brand’s fonts and colours, and the reference ads

How specific should the hook be?

Very specific. The hook decides whether anyone sees the rest, so describe the first frame or first line exactly and offer two or three options.

Write hooks as what the viewer sees or hears, not as goals. “Open on the sofa sliding into a 2.5-metre wall” can be made; “grab attention in the first three seconds” cannot.

Which brief mistakes make ads underperform?

Too many messages, no clear buyer and no examples of what good looks like. Each one leaves the maker to guess what the ad is for.

Three selling points in one ad, so none of them lands
Writing for everyone instead of one buyer
Asking for something to “pop” without showing a reference
Briefing variations of one idea and calling them separate concepts
Never telling the maker how their last ads performed

The fourth mistake costs the most under Andromeda, where near-identical ads compete for the same people. How different ads need to be sets the bar.

How do we feed results back into the next brief?

Keep a short log of every concept: the angle, the hook, the result and your best guess at why. Each new brief starts from that log.

Share results with whoever made the ads. A designer who knows which hook won writes a better next one, and a creator who sees the numbers stops repeating openings that lose. Hook rate and hold rate are the numbers that explain a video’s result, as covered in which creative metrics matter.

Can we hand over the briefing as well as the making?

Yes. A creative partner that develops the concepts as well as making them removes the briefing step, as long as you share results so each batch learns from the last.