Brand Founder Academy Why this page exists
Somebody else already spent millions finding the ad formats that work. This page shows you what they found. Copy the formats and skip the guessing.
What the numbers say
Motion analyzed 578,750 Meta ads across $1.29B in spend, from September 2025 to January 2026, across 6,015 ad accounts. Here's what the data showed.
Hit rate by format
| Format | Hit rate |
|---|---|
| Plain text-only ads | 11.6% · the highest of any format |
| Product image + text | 8.75% |
| Founder-style ads | 8.57% |
| UGC and creator-style ads | 7.56% |
| High-budget studio ads | 6.97% |
| Green screen ads | 4.87% |
"Hit rate" means the ad earned roughly 10 times the account's typical spend. It measures which ads Meta kept showing, not your return on ad spend.
Two more findings
- Brainlabs looked at 46 Meta brand-lift studies across 225 campaigns. Simple, phone-shot ads raised purchase intent by 9.7%, against an 8% average. Polished brand ads only won on awareness.
- AdSpyder's May 2026 count of new Meta ads found video just passed images: 50.8% of new ads are now video.
The 3 styles that work for a brand-new brand
- UGC / creator video
- A real-looking person in a real room with real light. The product is in their hand within the first 2 seconds. The headline is the first thing they say. One action, one honest reaction. The label faces the camera and the brand name is said out loud.
- Product + text image
- The product is big. One line of text, in your customer's own words. Your brand colors and nothing else. Also try the plain, text-only version. It's the top performer for a reason.
- Founder video
- You, on your phone: "I made this because..." About 20 seconds long. It's free to make and it beats most polished, expensive ads.
How the winning ads opened
5 openers
- Confession. You admit something first: "I used to hate my skin."
- Bold claim. You state a specific result up front: "This cut my prep time in half."
- Relatable problem. You name a problem the viewer already has: "If your closet looks like this too..."
- Before and after. Old way against new way, in the first line.
- Curiosity. A question the viewer wants answered: "Nobody tells you this about..."
What not to do
Never fake it
- No made-up reviews or testimonials.
- No star ratings you didn't earn.
- No borrowed logos, press names or "as seen in" claims that aren't true.
- No results you don't have yet.
Beyond being wrong, Meta rejects ads for this. It isn't worth the risk to your ad account.
Sources
Where every number comes from
- Motion, Creative Benchmarks 2026
- Motion, top hook formats
- AdSpyder, most used ad formats 2026
- Brainlabs, Meta brand-lift study analysis
This page goes with the Make Your Ads lesson. The short version: believable beats beautiful, and cheap formats win more often than expensive ones.