Blog Playbooks · The Benchmark Playbooks · Part 7
The before-and-after playbook: the cheapest look in our data, made honestly
Before-and-after ads brought the lowest cost per lead of any look we labeled. The group is small, so here is how to test one properly, and how to make it without stretching the truth.
We have run over 18,920 Meta ads, and when we labeled 2,126 of them by how they look, one look came out cheapest: the before-and-after. Those ads brought leads at $18.73 each, against an average of $26.62 across every labeled ad. That is the good news. The honest news is that only 40 ads carried the label, which makes it the smallest group in the look category. So this playbook treats before-and-after as the first thing to test, not a rule to follow.
What the number says, and what it does not
Here is where before-and-after sits among the eight looks we labeled.
Source: Creative Benchmarks, benchmark.sneeze.it (2,126 labeled ads)
Three things are worth reading carefully.
First, the cheapest three looks share a shape. Before-and-after, product demo ($20.58, 69 ads) and problem, then fix ($21.73, 115 ads) all show a change. Something is one way, then it is another way, and the viewer can see why. The two most expensive looks, feature and benefit list ($32.22) and headline only ($34.35), describe a change instead of showing it. Headline-only ads cost 83% more per lead than before-and-after.
Second, cheap leads are not the same as a high winner rate. Only 6.9% of before-and-after ads became winners, meaning they earned 10 times their account's median ad spend and at least $500. Photo collage, which costs more per lead at $27.75, turned 17.9% of its ads into winners. Cost per lead tells you how efficient an ad was with the money it got. Winner rate tells you how often Meta chose to give an ad money in the first place. We cover that gap in winner rate vs cost per lead.
Third, 40 ads is not many. A handful of unusually good or bad ads can move a small group's average a long way. If your account has never run a before-and-after, the data says it is worth a test. It does not say yours will land at $18.73.
Show the change. Do not describe it.
Why showing a change tends to work
A local customer scrolling past your ad is asking one question: will this work for someone like me? A before-and-after answers it in a second, with no reading. The viewer's own eyes do the persuading, which is more convincing than any line of copy you could write.
It also fits how people decide on local services. Most buyers cannot judge your skill directly. They can judge a result. A clean before picture and a clean after picture, taken the same way, gives them something concrete to trust.
The catch is that the same strength is what makes a dishonest before-and-after so damaging. If the after is staged, edited or not typical, the customer finds out at your front door, and that costs you more than the lead was worth.
How to make one honestly
The rules below are the ones we hold ourselves to. They protect the customer and your reputation, and they also make the ad better, because a believable result converts better than a perfect one.
- Pick a result you deliver every week
Choose the outcome most customers get, not your best ever. If you would not be comfortable showing it to the next ten customers as "what to expect", it is the wrong result.
- Get written permission first
If a person, their home or their property appears, get their written consent to use the images in advertising before you shoot. Keep it on file.
- Shoot both pictures the same way
Same angle, same distance, same light, same phone, no filters. The only thing that should change between the two frames is the result itself.
- Check Meta's rules for your category
Meta's advertising standards restrict before-and-after images in some categories, especially anything about body weight, health or cosmetic treatment. Read the current policy for your category before you spend a dollar.
- Say how long it took
Put the real timeframe on the ad in plain words. "After one visit" or "after six weeks" is more believable than no timeframe at all.
- Launch two or three versions, not one
Vary the result or the subject, keep the format the same. One ad tells you about one ad. Three tell you about the format.
- Judge it against your own account
Compare its cost per lead with your account's average, not ours. Give it the same budget and time you give any other new ad before you decide.
How to read your own test
Say you spend $1,500 a month on lead ads. At our labeled average of $26.62, that buys roughly 56 leads. At $18.73, the same money would buy roughly 80. That is arithmetic, not a forecast. It shows why a format that lands even partway toward the cheaper number is worth finding, and why it is worth running the test properly rather than eyeballing it after two days.
Two traps to avoid when you read the result:
- Judging too early. Most ads barely run. Two in three ads in our data spent under $100 in their whole life. If your before-and-after has spent $20, its cost per lead is noise. Our guide to ads that barely run covers how to judge an ad in its first week without killing a winner early.
- Comparing to the wrong average. Your account's average cost per lead is the benchmark that matters, because your offer, market and audience are baked into it. A before-and-after that beats your own average is a win, whatever our number says.
If the before-and-after beats your average, make more of them with different results and subjects. If it does not, you have still learned something real about your account, and the next looks to test are product demo and problem, then fix, the other two formats that show a change. We cover both in product demo and problem, then fix. For the full picture of every label, read what 18,920 Meta ads say about cost per lead.
