What Do You Think Of My Ad An Impractical Question For A Copywriter

When meeting with clients I often get asked for my opinion about their current advertising. Unfortunately that is now always the most constructive way to do a critique of an ad (or any other piece of marketing for that matter… ).
Question: “What do you think of my current ad?”
Answer: Based on over a decade of experience I can usually find a couple of ways that you can test to improve the response rates to an ad. But the real question you need to know is:
“What does the market think of your ad right now?”
And perhaps more importantly “How did you arrive at the current ad?”
If a copywriter is doing their job they act as an advocate for your market. And that means that they should be able to tell you some possibly confronting truths about your ad that you may not like. After all, it is about response isn’t it?
Generally, if you aren’t happy with how an ad is performing you are looking for an outcome beyond just a higher response.
There are reasons why you want or need higher response. Unfortunately the intelligent constructive feedback can only be when we unearth those reasons and look at how we can better work together to make them happen.
Some examples of this include you want to expand into other media and the maths behind the ad doesn’t allow you to and you are looking to improve response as a way around it. It could be the quality of the customers you are attracting. It isn’t working within certain markets that you thought it would work in.
I can remember someone telling the story of being asked to try and double the response of a Gary Halbert Ad so that business owner could afford to run the ad. Most copywriters are unable to beat a Gary Halbert ad rather not waste their time drawing dead like that.
In the case of ‘the Gary Halbert ad,’ despite low probability of being able to improve the copy, a copywriter who understands marketing strategy might be able to come up with any number of ideas on how to use that strong copy in ways that it makes financial sense to run it.
So knowing why you aren’t happy with your current ad can go a long way to exploring strategies outside of copy in the ad in order to reach your goals.
The more information we have at hand means the greater the sophistication of the discussion we can have about your ad. This increases the chances we have of success when we work together.
“Can you write a better ad? Or what do you think of this ad” Is not always the best way to start a conversation with a copywriter. Unfortunately it is the conversation you have to have with many copywriters. If I was you I’d be looking to talk to a copywriter who is a little smarter than that.