BBQGuys Paid Social Creative Concepts Test
Role: Design & Creative Lead — Constructed and executed BBQGuys’ first structured paid social creative test. I developed the creative strategy, presented concept options to test, designed and produced all test assets, and partnered with our paid social agency (Gr0) and Pinterest to ensure campaigns followed platform best practices and accurate test parameters. Owned the end-to-end process: from defining the learning agenda, to producing creative, to working with Gr0 to analyze results and present insights to leadership.
Stakeholders: Chief Marketing Officer (CMO), Paid Social Channel Manager
Consulted: Brand Manager, Gr0 (paid social agency), Copy Lead
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This was BBQGuys’ first-ever structured creative test, designed to uncover what messaging and visual storytelling actually resonates with customers using Meta & Pinterest.
The goal is to take these learnings to create a repeatable playbook to guide evergreen campaigns and holiday scaling.
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The brand creative team had never had clear insight into what types of creative drive performance (benefit-driven, testimonial, lifestyle, etc.).
The brand was refreshed in Jan 2024, and there was no framework for how to communicate with audiences in a way that balanced brand storytelling and conversion.
This initiative provided foundational learnings that now inform evergreen campaigns, seasonal sales, and holiday messaging.
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Test Window: Two-week paid social campaign (July 29–August 12, 2025) with a $15K budget.
Concept Buckets: Three high-level storytelling frameworks:
Benefits – functional framing around customer value.
FOMO – urgency, exclusivity, belonging.
Native – organic, in-feed, relatable tone.
Execution: Personally designed and produced all static ad variations (3–4 per concept) with distinct copy + visual treatments. Partnered with Gr0 to align on Meta Advantage+ structures and testing best practices
Learning Agenda: Partnered with Brand + Channel to defined metrics across CTR, ATC%, purchases, and ROAS to evaluate resonance and funnel strength
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Delivered BBQGuys’ first clear insights into what creative works, how messaging should be framed, and how to talk to audiences under the new brand.
Established a repeatable creative testing framework, shifting the organization from tactical execution to data-backed creative strategy.
Provided CMO-level insights that now guide asset development for evergreen, holiday, and promotional campaigns.
Set a foundation for ongoing collaboration between Brand, Creative, Channel, and Agency partners.
Defining the Test Framework
The first challenge was clarifying what we were testing and why. There was initial ambiguity between testing message type (Benefits vs. FOMO vs. Native) and testing product categories (Outdoor Kitchens, Grills, Fire Pits, etc.).
I guided the team to align on the learning objective:
Primary learning: Determine which high-level messaging type best resonates with our audience to anchor future creative strategy.
Secondary learning: Understanding which creative executions (formats, visuals, tones) should guide evergreen strategy.
This ensured the test wasn’t just about “which ad variation wins,” but about get learnings for creative decision-making.
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Strategy > Tactics
Testing the underlying story we're telling without font, color, or format
Foundational insights into what motivates our audience
Scalability
Adapt across formats and channels
Scale beyond evergreen with elements like promotional urgency
Reduce Creative Guesswork
Performance data on types of storytelling that resonate
Clarity for future campaigns
Sets Up for Efficient + Tactical Iteration
Test variants of a concept through visual and copy elements.
Longer term learnings
Testing more tactical variables might not give us clear reads
Builds brand equity
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Benefits: To showcase how our brand solve customer needs
Emotional FOMO: To leverage positive urgency—tap into belonging, exclusivity, and “don’t miss out” energy.
Native: To blend seamlessly into social feeds with platform-native look and feel
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To ensure relevance, I mapped each asset within each concept variation to each section of BBQGuys’ brand pyramid, grounding the test in brand strategy while still isolating messaging learnings so that results could inform both brand-level storytelling and category-level requests.
We marketed a total of 12 ads. 4 ads within each concept.
Concept 1 - Benefits
1A: Benefits - Overall Equity
1B: Benefits - Brand Character
1C: Benefits - PODs
1D: Benefits - The Backyard (Experiential)
Concept 2 - Emotional FOMO
2A: Benefits - Overall Equity
2B: Benefits - Brand Character
2C: Benefits - PODs
2D: Benefits - The Backyard (Experiential)
Concept 3 - Native
3A: Benefits - Overall Equity
3B: Benefits - Brand Character
3C: Benefits - PODs
3D: Benefits - The Backyard (Experiential)
Benefits - Brand Character
Benefits - The Backyard
FOMO - Brand Character
FOMO - The Backyard
Native - Brand Character
Native - The Backyard
Benefits - POD, Product Selection
Benefits - Overall Equity
FOMO - POD, Product Selection
FOMO - Overall Equity
Native - POD, Product Selection
FOMO - Overall Equity
Creative Learnings
Benefits Concept (The Backyard Ad)
Delivered 19 purchases, 16.7% ATC rate.
“Before/after” transformation visuals paired with emotional comfort messaging.
FOMO Concept (Empty = Weekend Ad)
Outperformed with 38 purchases, 24.5x ROAS.
Emotionally charged, connected lack of a backyard upgrade to wasted weekends.
Native Concept (Brand Character Ad)
33 purchases, 20.8x ROAS.
Twitter-style format that blended seamlessly into feeds and felt authentic
While performance data told us which ads worked (FOMO = urgency, Benefits = transformation, Native = authenticity), the bigger outcome was the strategic clarity the test created.
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By isolating message type from visual treatments, we created a clean read on resonance — eliminating the noise that usually comes from mixing product, category, and brand stories in the same creative.
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I connected our RTBs and PODs directly into the ad copy + visuals, making sure every variant laddered back to brand equity instead of just tactical promotions.
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This framework helped the CMO, Brand, and Channel teams finally align around a shared creative language (Benefits vs. FOMO vs. Native) — a tool we now use to brief, evaluate, and iterate creative.