When COVID hit, we completely turned off paid digital. As things normalized with ZipRecruiter preparing to go public, I was asked to lead creative and revive paid digital, and specifically try to crack the code for mobile and video placements. (Despite lots of video and mobile creative testing in the past, these placements struggled to perform.)
As budgets were tight and we were still in the middle of 2020, we chose to tailor our bread and butter "Hiring?" message to acknowledge that many businesses were struggling and almost nobody was in an office. We also re-published pre-pandemic top performers.
None of the round 1 ads (selections above) beat pre-pandemic creatives, but the image of the mom and her toddler came the closest. We attributed this to the size / legibility of the word "HIRE". We also decided we didn't need to acknowledge the state of things in our ads.
In addition to prioritizing legibility, we focused on adding motion to get people to stop scrolling. Historically, our video ads had been like "mini commercials" but they hadn't performed as well as static ads. We saw adding subtle motion and text to static images as a way to enhance our static ads (selections below). We also versioned everything for mobile feed and stories placements instead of using only 1:1 or 4:5 ads across all.
Not only did both of these selections beat the Phase 1 creatives, but the construction ad beat the top performing, pre-pandemic creatives as well. This was the first time in ZipRecruiter history that a video ad was the top performing creative. The combination of highly legible text and subtle motion was working!
This was the first time in ZipRecruiter history that a video ad was the top performing creative.
We doubled-down on the success of our construction ad; we remixed a pre-pandemic Art Deco style ad, made some seasonal ads for fall and winter, and tested using Cinema 4D to boost production value.
...And we crushed it. All of these ads have taken turns at #1 for us (except the snowflakes) and they all perform in video and static placements on mobile and desktop.
While it was exciting to have a set of ads efficiently scaling spend (across devices and placement types), what we really wanted was to tell a story about why ZipRecruiter is the best place to hire.
We analyzed past "mini commercials" and noted that: the best ones focused on product features and usually ended with our "Rated #1" claim. In addition, Erik (designer) pointed out that we've never used our "4 out of 5" claim in paid digital, which was the top performing claim in audio at the time. We also had never versioned them for stories.
To be efficient we leveraged footage from B2B TV, stock video, and made a text only version; all opened with "Hiring?". We also made a testimonial ad to test against the "Hiring" format.
We set new records again. The testimonial was the only one that didn't toe the line. The rest out performed gifs and static ads on stories placements, unlocking spend there for the first time. We repeated this with a New Years version of the text only ad (below).
As B2B ads took off, and with millions of people out of work, we switched our focus to job seekers. We had tested a handful of job seeker creatives in the past, but they never spent efficiently. Hopefully our new tactics could drive more efficient spend and help some people find jobs along the way.
Our first move was to remix winning B2B creatives for job seekers while also trying some more lighthearted and clever ways to get job seekers to stop scrolling.
These three ads (above) smashed all pre-pandemic job seeker creative and surpassed my goal of 50% cost reduction. But surprisingly (or unsurprisingly?) the cake ad was the most efficient. People really like food in their feeds I guess.
We continued to apply B2B learnings to job seeker concepts, remixed more employer ads, and designed new concepts. We specifically focused on generating creative for mobile and stories placements.
On average, these job seeker ads were about 3X more efficient than all previous tests.
The Art Deco remix (middle) performed on par with Phase 1. My personal favorite of the bunch is the Uncle Sam homage (first), but it was the neon cityscapes (last) that set the new high water mark, especially on mobile and stories placements. On average, these job seeker ads were about 3X more efficient than all previous tests, but there is still a ton of room to grow consumer paid digital.
Designers: Erik Arildsson, Marshall Jones
Copywriter: Michelle Spencer
Creative Ops: Jenn Yang
Marketer / Analyst: Esmaeel Paryavi