Six saved ads is a swipe file. One brief is a plan. Here is how to get from one to the other.
Start with six, not sixty
Six ads are enough to show a pattern and few enough to read properly. Sixty is research that never ends.
Pick them on purpose:
- Three or four long-running ads from your closest competitors. Days running is your filter.
- One or two ads that have relaunched or have many variants.
- One wildcard from outside your category, with a hook or format you would like to borrow.
If you need help choosing, how to read a competitor's ad library covers what to look for. In Marketing Window, save each ad to your swipe file as you find it, then put your six on one board.
Tag each ad in one line
Watch each ad twice. Then write one line with four parts:
- Hook. What happens in the first three seconds.
- Angle. The reason to buy that the ad is selling.
- Offer. The deal, if there is one.
- Format. Length, ratio and style, such as UGC, founder-led, CGI or demo.
Here is a hypothetical set of six for a vitamin C serum:
| Ad | Hook | Angle | Offer | Format |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | Close-up of a dropper on skin | One step replaces three | 20% off first order | 15s, 9:16, CGI |
| 2 | "I stopped buying three products" | One step replaces three | None | 30s, 9:16, UGC |
| 3 | Bottle on a sunny bathroom shelf | Morning routine | Free shipping | 15s, 4:5, demo |
| 4 | Founder holding the bottle | Made by a chemist | 20% off first order | 30s, 9:16, founder-led |
| 5 | Texture close-up on a fingertip | One step replaces three | Bundle price | 6s, 1:1, CGI loop |
| 6 | Fast cuts of a busy morning | Saves time | None | 15s, 9:16, UGC |
Keep each entry short enough to fit in a table cell. If a hook needs a paragraph to describe, you have not found the hook yet.
Transcripts and an AI breakdown of hook, angle and offer can speed this up. Write the line yourself anyway. Writing it is how you notice things.
Find what repeats
Now read down each column. You are looking for anything that turns up three or more times.
In the example, "one step replaces three" appears in three of the six ads, each in a different format. Product close-ups open two of them. Four of the six are 9:16. Those repeats are your category telling you what works. The one-offs are either tests or ideas nobody has proven yet.
Mark the repeats. They become the core of the brief. Note the gaps too. An angle nobody is using can be an opportunity, as long as you treat it as a test rather than a sure thing.
Choose one concept
A brief with six ideas is a mood board. Pick one concept: one angle, told one way. In the example, that might be "one step replaces three, shown through close-ups of the product".
If you are torn between two, pick the one with the most evidence behind it: the repeat that shows up in the longest-running ads. Save the other for your next brief.
Everything else you found becomes variation. The other hooks become alternative openings. The other formats become placements. You keep the research without diluting the idea.
Write the brief
A good brief fits on one page. Use these fields:
- Goal. What the ad should do, and how you will judge it.
- Product. Which one, with size, variant and anything that must be shown.
- Audience. Who it is for, in one sentence.
- Concept. The one idea, in one sentence.
- Hooks. Three options for the first three seconds.
- Format. Length and ratios, for example 15 seconds in 9:16, 4:5 and 1:1.
- Scenes. Four to six shots, in order.
- Offer and call to action. The deal, and what you want people to do.
- Must-haves and must-nots. Label visible, claims you can and cannot make, brand colours.
- References. Your six ads, each with a note on what to take from it.
That last field matters most. "Take the opening close-up from ad 1" is useful. "Like ad 1" is not. Take the structure, not the ad. Your version should use your product, your claims and your voice.
Hand it over
The brief is done when someone who has never seen your six ads could make the ad from it. Before you send it, read it once as a stranger would. Anything you would have to explain out loud belongs in the brief. Then give it to your team or a freelancer, or make it yourself.
In Marketing Window, any saved ad can become yours with "Make my version". It opens Create with that ad as the blueprint: its hook, pacing and shot order, never its footage. You add your product and a short brief and get finished files in your Library. For video, you read and edit the script before anything is made.
Then keep watching. If a competitor brings one of your six back with a new hook, that is free information for your next brief. Relaunches: the cheapest research in paid social explains how to read them.
