What is 'Creative Performance' in Marketing?

Performing great in your advertising strategy is not just about the media buying anymore. Creativity is heavily underrated as a marketing tool and performance driver.

I'll go into depth about what Creative Performance is and how it's measured with the Creative Efficiency Score. 

Ask yourself: How would you rate your marketing team's Creative Performance? Feel free to reach out - I'd love to hear your input.

 

Jacob Wolf

 CRO / Zuuvi

Quick Guide:

• What is Creative Performance?
• Creative Performance vs. Performance Creative
• So What's Most Important: Creativity or Data?
• How do You Measure Creative Performance?
• The 3 Pillars of Creative Performance
  • Cost of Production
  • Speed
  • Performance

Google - the world’s largest performance engine has stated that 70% of your ad effectiveness is attributed to the creativity of your ads.

We consume more content everyday and the demand for more content is constantly increasing. That requires marketers to work faster, be more agile - and more creative to stand out in the crowd.

What is "Creative Performance"?

‘Creative Performance’ is about creating high-quality ads that don’t just look great but are produced efficiently and at scale. 

It means streamlining the production process so your team can deliver impactful content quickly and consistently, keeping up with demand while driving real results. 

When you optimise creative performance, your ads are able to really push your brand further.

How this can happen can be summed up in 3 elements, that are a part of the Creative Efficiency Score.

1. Quality: To capture attention and make a lasting impact, your ads need to be more creative than your competitors’. It’s about creating content that doesn’t just look good but truly resonates—stopping the scroll, sparking curiosity, and leaving an impression.

2. Quantity: In today’s multi-channel world, one ad won’t cut it. You need a steady stream of fresh content to cover all your channels and formats. Scaling your creative production means you’re always ready to meet your audience where they are, with the right message at the right time.

3. Speed: The faster you get from concept to live ad, the stronger your edge. When you’re quick on the draw, you stay relevant, responsive, and just a step ahead of your competitors. Speed isn’t just about working fast; it’s about making your whole production process efficient and agile.

We’ll get back to how you measure these 3 elements later in the article.

‘Creative Performance’ vs. ‘Performance Creative’ 

Performance Creative and Creative Performance may sound similar, but they represent two distinct approaches in the world of creative marketing, each with its own focus and value.

Performance Creative

Some people think of Performance Creative as "old wine in new bottles", as producing data-driven ads isn't revolutionary.

This approach relies on data-driven insights from the start, using analytics to guide creative decisions that are intentionally crafted to convert. The Performance Creative Approach has been criticised of being too data-focused, neglecting many metrics and measurements that may be difficult to assess in cold numbers - take creativity as an example.

Creative Performance

On the other hand, creative performance focuses on the assessment of an ad’s effectiveness after it’s launched. It’s about measuring how well a creative asset resonates with audiences through metrics like click-through rates, engagement times, and conversions. This process offers valuable insights into what elements of the ad - whether visuals, messaging, or placement - are truly working. The purpose of Creative Performance is to understand how to fine-tune future campaigns based on what has already proven to engage and convert.

But the thing is: it is difficult to measure creativity. That's why we also need data to be able to say something truly insightful about creative work.

This is exactly what creative marketing is: blending creativity with the science of data to produce high-performing ads, while also analysing past successes and failures helps shape the path for future creative strategies.

It really is important to not mix these 2 terms.

So What's Most Important: Creativity or Data?

And if so much of your ads’ success depends on your creative expertise, you should spend more time on deeper, creative metrics than just ROAS.

Let’s be clear – ROAS isn’t a bad metric, and definitely something you need to keep in mind. But it's time to go deeper and start digging into the creative side of things! The data you can pull from your creatives’ performance is what really moves the needle on improving ROAS (yay 🙌).

By focusing on what makes your visuals, headlines, and messages stand out, you’re not just improving one campaign – you’re building a strategy that makes every ad work harder.

By analysing your ad creatives, you can uncover which call-to-action phrases yield the highest click-through rates, determine whether lifestyle images or product shots drive better engagement, identify whether videos or static images perform best, and discover which ad placements like stories or feeds resonate most with your audience.

However, there is a crucial question that most marketers don’t ask when analysing ad performance:

How Do You Measure Creative Performance?

That is the question that I think should be asked. And I think we need methods that and measurements that force advertisers to look much closer at the creative marketing process than before.

Picture this: You’re a CMO, a Digital Marketing Manager, or a Performance Specialist. When it comes to your performance, your boss probably has one thing in mind – results. That means purchases, leads, and anything that drives commercial value.

But how do you measure the effectiveness of your design team? Or the overall efficiency of your marketing crew?

Enter Creative Efficiency Score.

The 3 Pillars of Creative Performance

Creative Performance is measured in 3 different pillars, from which the Creative Efficiency Score draws its data - and it is time to put numbers to what can seem like a “soft” metric.

Creative efficiency isn’t just an idea – it’s measurable, trackable, and benchmarkable. It combines ad performance (quality), cost of production (cost), and time-to-market (speed) into a score that gives you a clear view of your creative impact.

Your Creative Efficiency is reflected by the cost of your production, your time-to-market and your performance:

Cost of Production

How much does it cost you to produce 1 ad creative?
Knowing your cost of production means getting the most out of your creative budget without sacrificing quality.

When you track what each ad costs to create, you can spot where to streamline and spend smarter - freeing up resources to keep producing fresh, impactful content that moves the needle.

Speed

How's your production speed?
Time-to-market is crucial. The quicker you launch, the more likely your brand stays top-of-mind and a step ahead of the competition.

With Zuuvi, your designers can create ads in just 3 phases, through in-house ad creation that allow for collaboration with marketers within the platform itself. This lets you skip the time-consuming review-and-approve-processes that traditional ad creation require. 

Performance

How well do your ads perform?
Performance isn’t just about being seen – it’s about meeting your goals. Whether it’s brand awareness, traffic, or conversions, your performance metrics tell you how effectively your ads hit the mark.

By measuring these three elements of performance, you get a solid, data-driven view of your ad’s impact. It’s a game-changing way to refine your campaigns and boost your creative output – so you can keep raising the bar.

Weighing these three factors individually can help you figure out where you can optimise: If your time-to-market is super quick, and your cost of production is low, while you're still not getting high ad performance, that may say something about your ad quality (creative quality).

That might be a good indicator to look at your creative briefs, creative tools and how your ad creatives are produced - there might be space for optimisation.

If this is the case, your design team may be lacking creative options and freedom, halting their creative process.

Let a Zuuvineer demonstrate our code-free platform for you. No coding means more time to be creative... which eventually means higher ad quality. Voila.

Take your 'Creative Performance' to the next level

Here’s the bottom line: knowing the unique value each part of your creative process brings is essential for hitting your goals.

The more you understand your production flow, the clearer it becomes just how much each element impacts your ad performance. With these insights, you’re equipped to tweak, refine, and elevate your strategy to make sure every ad resonates, drives engagement, and boosts results.

A well-tuned creative process doesn’t just support your KPIs — it powers them.