Scope: This is a quick analysis of selected accounts that we manage, not all accounts or the whole market.
Analysis period: 90 days of analysis. Year-on-year comparisons use the same 90-day period in the previous year. Conversions use a 7-day click basis unless labelled 1-day view. Purchase value is Meta-attributed, not GA4 or accounting revenue.
The story in one paragraph
Two hundred and ninety-eight ads went through Seria creative scoring in 90 days. The best of them scored 593. The worst scored 0.00, more than once. If format decided creative, the story would end there: make more of the winning format and delete the rest. The data refused to cooperate. The top scores included an image, a video and a carousel, and the zero scores included video and image ads too. The format was not the hero of this story. What was inside the format was. This is what creative scoring teaches you before your budget learns it the expensive way.
Act one: the cost of learning by spending
The traditional way to find a good ad is to fund all of them and watch. The budget does the judging, and by the time the verdict arrives, the money is spent. In a group of selected accounts that delivered around 62 million impressions in 90 days, learning by spending alone means millions of impressions are bought just to find out which creative deserved them.
Scoring turns that order around. Seria scores creative on its recorded WSV measure before and while it runs, so weak creative is visible as weak early, while there is still budget left to move.
A note on the score itself: WSV is not a mark out of 100. Scores in this data run into the hundreds, 593 at the top, and they are used to compare creative against creative, not to pass or fail an exam.
Act two: what 298 scored ads showed
- Highest recorded scores: an image at 593, a status-type post at 337, a competition video at 273, a carousel at 161 and a dynamic product carousel at 92
- Lowest recorded scores: several ads at 0.00, across both video and image formats
- Every account had creative scored, from 13 ads on the smallest account to 105 on the largest
- The spread inside single accounts was as dramatic as the spread across the selected accounts: a client held both a 273 video and a 44 video for the same promotion season
That last point is the heart of the story. Same account, same season, same product family, two videos, and one scored six times the other. Creative quality is not a department, a format or a production budget. It is ad by ad: the first seconds, the offer, the clarity, the reason to stop scrolling. Scoring makes that visible ad by ad, instead of letting a campaign average hide the weak ads inside a strong set.
Act three: scores move, and that is the point
Creative was not the only thing Seria scored in this period. Account scores, snapshotted at the start and end of the 90-day analysis, moved in both directions: 32 up to 52, 52 up to 58, and also 64 down to 55, 60 down to 58, 46 down to 28 and 100 down to 32.
A scoring system that only ever goes up is a mirror, not a measurement. These scores fall when accounts drift, when campaigns pause, when checks start failing, and the falls are the most valuable part of the data, because each one is a conversation that starts weeks before the results would have forced it. In this same period, scoring and audit data showed accounts with no spend for 23, 33 and 50 days. Without measurement, a paused account is invisible. With it, the gap has a start date.
What this means for your creative process
Score before you scale. When a new set of ads is ready, get them measured, back the strongest with the launch budget, and fix or retire the weakest before they spend, not after.
Compare inside the set, not against the internet. Your best ad is the benchmark that matters, and the gap between your best and worst is the size of the prize.
Re-score as you go. Creative tires, audiences move and scores drift down on ads that launched well. The accounts in this data were audited 15 times each in 90 days, creative included, because a score is a moving story, not a launch day verdict.
Frequently asked questions
What is a creative score?
A measure of an ad's expected and observed strength, used to rank creative against creative. Seria's recorded measure here is WSV. It is not a score out of 100, and in this data set recorded scores ran from 0.00 to 593 across 298 ads.
Does video always beat image creative?
No. The highest score in this data belonged to an image, and video ads appear at both the top and the very bottom of the range. What is inside the ad decides the score, not the format label.
How many ads should be scored?
All of them. In this period every active account had its ads scored, 13 to 105 ads per account. Averages hide weak ads; scoring names them.
Can scoring replace testing?
No. Scoring ranks creative early so testing budget is spent on the strongest candidates first. Live results remain the final judge, and scores are checked against them as campaigns run.
Talk to Wassp
Want your next set of ads scored before your budget judges them? Seria Analytics is built into WASSP Paid Media and Content Marketing. Email wasspsolutions@wassp.co.za or call +27 11 450 4634. 5 Riley Rd, Bedfordview, Gauteng.
Related services: Seria Analytics, Content Marketing, Paid Media.