Our team had efficiently scaled B2B spend for years but performance remained mostly limited to static desktop ads. Despite lots of video and mobile creative testing, these placements struggled to perform and took much longer to produce. Then 2020 happened and turned everything upside down. Once things stableized, I was asked to help get digital creative up and running again in the summer of 2020 and to try and crack the code for mobile and video.

- Scale up spend again for employer audience

- Get video and mobile creative to perform on par with static ads

1. Get people to stop scrolling (via eye-catching visual)

2. Connect them to our purpose in the first 3 seconds (via concept / headline)

3. If they're still listening, get them to take action (via ad / post copy)

My Role: Creative Director

Designers: Erik Arildsson, Marshall Jones

Copywriter: Michelle Spencer

Creative Ops: Jenn Yang

Marketer / Analyst: Esmaeel Paryavi

After years of running digital ads we knew our employer audience well, and the message they responded to the most was "Hiring?" As budgets were tight and we were still in the middle of 2020, we chose to continue to embrace this simple, direct message.

We decided to tailor the "Hiring?" message to acknowledge current events: especially the fact that many businesses were struggling and almost nobody was in an office. We applied this to a our top video ad and replaced it with WFH stock footage, and to a neon sign concept that has performed well for months. We also tried some new ideas.

Unfortunately, none of these ads (selections above) beat the pre-pandemic creatives. The second image of the mom and her toddler came the closest. We concluded that increased size / legibility of the word "HIRE" was the main reason this ad was more successful than the others. We also agreed to be more direct, like before. If a business was hiring, we would state that we're the solution without acknowledging the ever-present pandemic.

In addition to improving legibility and fully returning to our "Hiring?" roots, we leaned into our #1 tactic of aiming for scroll-stopping visuals (listed above). And we focused on doing this with motion. While video ads didn't perform very well for us historically, we had been mainly testing "mini commercials" and hadn't tried more subtle motion like gifs or cinemagraphs (selections below). 

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 video ad in ZipRecruiter's history to become a top performing creative. We attributed this new success to the combination of highly legible text and increased visual interest / production value due to the added motion. And maybe a little pandemic luck too.

The obvious move was to double-down on the success of our construction ad. We chose to remix an Art Deco style, pre-pandemic ad, do some seasonal ads for fall and winter, and try boosting production value even more by using Cinema 4D. 

...All of these ads crushed it. All of these have taken turns at #1 for us (except the snowflakes) and perform well as video and static placements on mobile and desktop. While it was exciting to now have a handful of ads efficiently scaling spend across device and placement types, they were all just looping gifs that said "Hiring?" We really wanted to tell a story about why ZipRecruiter is the best place find quality candidates.

Linear video ads (what I called "mini commercials" above) are the best way to impart the value of our brand and products. We just couldn't get them to spend in the ballpark of our static ads, and they took much more time to produce. 

As we analyzed past videos "mini commercials" we saw the best ones focused on product features and usually ended with our #1 claim. Our designer Erik pointed out that we hadn't used our top RTB from radio that was a results oriented claim. So naturally, we tried it. To be efficient we leverage footage from our recent B2B TV spot, did a stock video version, and did a text only version (selections below).

We optimized these ads for mobile and stories placements (which are dominated by video content) and made sure to keep our "Hiring?" hook on all but one variant to see how a testimonial approach tested again our bread and butter.  

The results were very strong. We set new records again. The testimonial ad was the only one that didn't tow the line. The rest outperformed our gifs and static ads on stories placements, unlocking efficient spend there for the first time. and we were able to repeat this with a New Years version of the text only ad.