What an ad creative service should deliver every week: an 8-item checklist. CreatStrat

You pay an ad creative service every month, and every week a folder of files arrives. Some of the ads look good. Nobody can tell you why these ads and not others, what each one was meant to test, or what last week's numbers changed.

This checklist gives you eight things a weekly service should hand you, the question that checks each one, and the answer that should worry you. It's vendor-neutral. CreatStrat sells a weekly plan, and it gets measured against the same eight items further down.

What should an ad creative service deliver every week?

Short answer

A weekly ad creative service should hand you eight things: the research behind the ads, a test plan, a brief per ad, the finished ads in each placement's ratio, the Meta copy, written usage rights, a stated answer for ads you won't run, and a read of last week's results.

Research: the customer language, competitor ads and your own results behind this week's ads.
Test plan: what each ad is in the batch to find out.
Brief per ad: the written decisions behind each asset, so you can tell a new concept from a resize.
Finished ads in each placement's ratio: a stated count, delivered on a stated day.
Meta copy: primary text, headline, description and call to action for every ad.
Written usage rights: what you can do with the ads, including after you cancel.
A stated answer for ads you won't run: in plain words, before you pay.
A read of last week's results: what changed in this week's plan because of them.

Treat the list as a buyer's minimum. A service can hand over all eight and a given week's ads can still lose.

Why weekly? Meta put it plainly: "The best creative diversification leaders routinely launch new ads on a weekly basis" (Meta for Business, "Three steps to optimize your performance with creative diversification", November 19, 2024). How many ads a week depends on your spend and catalog, which how many new ads per week works through.

How do you check each of the eight?

Check each deliverable with one question to the vendor and one standard to hold the answer against. A vague or missing answer is the red flag.

This is a CreatStrat framework for judging any vendor. The standard column cites primary sources; the red flags are patterns to watch for, not survey findings about any named company.

The weekly deliverables checklist: what to ask an ad creative service, and the standard behind each item
#	Item	Ask the vendor	Red-flag answer	The standard (source)
1	Research	"What did you learn this week that changed what you made?"	"We follow your brand guide."	Matz et al. (2017), PNAS: personality-matched appeals drew up to 50% more purchases
2	Test plan	"What is each ad here to find out?"	"We'll see what performs."	Meta for Business, "Demystifying Creative Diversification", December 16, 2025: iteration vs diversification
3	A brief per ad	"Can I see the brief for this ad?"	Briefs only on request, or a one-line prompt	IPA BetterBriefs (2021): 80% of marketers vs 10% of agency respondents rated briefs good
4	Finished ads in each placement's ratio	"How many ads, in which ratios, on which day?"	"Unlimited requests," handled one at a time, with no weekly count; one square file per ad	Meta Ads Guide (accessed October 2, 2026): 4:5 for Feed, 9:16 for Stories and Reels, carousel 1:1 with 2 to 10 cards
5	Meta copy per ad	"Is the copy written, or is that a separate service?"	"Copy is an add-on."	Meta Ads Guide (accessed October 2, 2026): carousel 80 / 20 / 18 characters; Feed image headline 27
6	Usage rights in writing	"Where does the contract say what I can do with the ads, and does that survive cancelling?"	"You own everything" on the sales page only, or rights tied to an active subscription	The vendor's written terms
7	A stated answer for ads you won't run	"What happens to an ad I won't run?"	No answer, or revisions that eat the weekly count	The vendor's own terms; no external standard exists
8	A learning loop	"What changed in this week's plan because of last week?"	A monthly PDF of metrics with no change to the next batch	Meta for Business, "Three steps to optimize your performance with creative diversification", November 19, 2024: a weekly creative brief review

One more question for any vendor: who launches the ads, and who answers for their claims? With CreatStrat, you launch the ads, and the Terms of Service (§13) make you responsible for the claims they make.

Want to see items 1 and 3 on your own product? Share a product page URL and the Gap Scan returns the research and an example concept for it. Free. 3 researched opportunities, 1 customer-avatar gap, and 1 example concept within 24 hours.

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What research should sit behind the ads you get?

Research means the words your customers use (reviews, support tickets, comments), the ads your competitors are running, and your own account's results. A brand guide isn't research. It tells a designer how an ad should look. It doesn't say who the ad is for or which problem it should name.

According to Matz et al. (2017, PNAS), across three field experiments reaching over 3.5 million people, appeals matched to personality produced up to 40% more clicks and up to 50% more purchases than mismatched or unpersonalized ones. That's one study's finding about matched appeals, not a CreatStrat result or an outcome to expect from your ads.

You can tell the research is real when each ad traces back to something specific: a phrase from a review, an objection a competitor never answers, the hook that held attention last week.

Red flag: "We follow your brand guide." If your vendor gives that answer, ask for one sentence per ad naming the customer insight behind it. For the research side of the role, see what a creative strategist produces in a week.

What does a test plan look like, and why is it different from variations?

Meta's own guidance separates two moves. In "Demystifying Creative Diversification" (Meta for Business, December 16, 2025), iteration keeps the same visuals and changes the text or call to action, while diversification means "unique campaign assets tailored to different customer personas or use cases."

A test plan says which of the two each ad is and what it's there to find out.

Red flag: "We'll see what performs." Ten color swaps of one concept make a variation set. They test one idea ten times. More on the difference in creative diversification on Meta.

Why should every ad come with its own brief?

The brief is where you see whether an ad is a new concept or a resize. It records the decisions behind the asset, from the customer it's for to the hook word for word. If two briefs read the same, you received one idea twice.

Buyers and makers rarely agree on briefs. In the IPA's BetterBriefs research (13 October 2021), a survey of over 1,700 marketers and agency staff in over 70 countries, 80% of marketers rated their own briefs as good, and 10% of agency respondents agreed. Those are perceptions, not a measurement of brief quality, but the gap is wide.

Red flag: briefs only on request, or a one-line prompt standing in for one. Ask to see the brief for any ad in this week's batch. The full standard is in what a production-ready ad brief contains.

What sizes and copy should a finished ad arrive with?

Meta's Ads Guide recommends a 4:5 image at 1440 x 1800 pixels for Facebook Feed and a 9:16 asset at 1440 x 2560 pixels for Instagram Stories and Reels, and for Stories it asks you to keep roughly 14% of the top, 35% of the bottom and 6% of each side clear of text and logos (Meta Ads Guide, "Awareness image ad specs on Facebook Feed", "Awareness image ad specs on Instagram Stories" and "Awareness video ad specs on Instagram Reels", accessed October 2, 2026).

Meta updates those pages without dates, so check the Ads Guide on the day you brief. One square file per concept leaves the cropping to you, or to Meta.

Copy is part of the ad. Each one should come with primary text, a headline, a description and a call to action written inside Meta's recommended lengths, such as 50 to 150 characters of primary text and a 27-character headline for a Feed image.

Meta placement specs

Three frames, and where text can sit in Stories.

The cards give each placement's ratio. The bars run from 0 to 100% of a Stories frame's height and width, and the filled band is where text and logos can go.

4:5Facebook Feed

1440 x 1800 pixels

9:16Stories and Reels

1440 x 2560 pixels

1:1Carousel cards

2 to 10 cards per carousel

HeightTop to bottom

Clear: top 14%, bottom 35%

WidthLeft to right

Clear: 6% each side

0%25%50%75%100%

Share of the Stories frame

Meta gives the Stories margins as approximate. Its Ads Guide pages carry no dates, so check them on the day you brief.

Source: Meta Ads Guide, "Awareness image ad specs on Facebook Feed", "Awareness image ad specs on Instagram Stories", "Awareness video ad specs on Instagram Reels" and "Awareness carousel ad specs on Facebook Feed", accessed October 2, 2026.

What can you do with the ads, and does it survive cancelling?

What you can do with the ads, and whether that survives cancelling, belongs in the written terms, not only on the sales page.

A line on a pricing page is a promise. Ask where the contract says you can use, change and run the ads, and whether those rights continue after you cancel.

What should a service say about an ad you don't want to run?

The usual answers are revision rounds on the ad, a replacement ad, revisions that come out of your weekly volume, or feedback that steers the next batch. No external standard exists, so the vendor's own terms are the only reference.

You need the answer before you pay, because it decides what your weekly count really is. If a change to one ad uses up a slot, you receive fewer new ads that week than you paid for.

Ask any vendor, in writing, whether changes to an ad you won't run come out of your weekly count.

Red flag: no answer, or an answer that only exists on a sales call.

What should last week's results change in this week's plan?

A learning loop shows up as a changed plan. This week's briefs should name what last week taught: a hook that held attention gets new variations, and a concept that drew clicks but no purchases gets a stated reason before it's retired or reworked.

Meta recommends the same rhythm. In "Three steps to optimize your performance with creative diversification" (Meta for Business, November 19, 2024), it suggests "reviewing a creative brief of your Advantage+ shopping campaigns in a weekly meeting with your ad buyer and creative teams."

Reading results is a skill of its own. Which metric blames which part of the ad covers hook rate, hold rate, CTR and conversion rate. Why an ad with 9 purchases isn't a winner yet covers sample size before anyone calls a result.

How does the CreatStrat plan answer the checklist?

CreatStrat is a software subscription that delivers finished ads every week. CreatStrat researches, plans the tests, writes the brief, and produces the finished statics, carousels, mashups, AI video, and AI UGC, each with its Meta copy. Your creative strategist is built in.

AI UGC here means an AI presenter who presents the product to camera. Under the Terms of Service (§12), these presenters are synthetic people who aren't real customers and don't claim to have used your product. Here's how the plan answers each item, narrow answers included.

How the CreatStrat plan answers the eight-item checklist
#	Item	How the plan answers it
1	Research	Your brand, customers, competitors and connected Meta results
2	Test plan	Each ad has a job (Iterate, Explore, New avatar or Recombine) and a "What it tests" line
3	Brief per ad	Customer avatar, awareness level, angle, hook, script or layout, visual direction, production notes and Meta copy
4	Finished ads	A new batch every week in the app; statics and carousels export in 1:1, 4:5 and 9:16
5	Meta copy	Primary text, headline, description and CTA with every ad
6	Usage rights	Terms §14: once you've paid for the period they're delivered in, the finished ads, briefs and Meta copy are yours to use, change and run in your business, including after you cancel
7	Ads you won't run	You decide whether to run each ad (Terms §13). Feedback is optional and steers the next batch. There is no per-ad approval step
8	Learning loop	Connected Meta results plan the next batch automatically

Those rights have limits: under §14, licensed fonts, music or stock footage can be used as part of the ad they came in, and AI presenters aren't exclusive to you unless agreed in writing. Under §12, CreatStrat can't promise that every element is unique to you or that generated material is protected by copyright in every country, and under §10 workspace access ends with the subscription, so download what you want to keep (full text in the Terms of Service, Part 2).

The learning loop runs on a read-only connection. Under §16, you add CreatStrat's Business Portfolio as a partner on one ad account with "View performance" access, and CreatStrat can't edit your campaigns, budgets or ads. You can start before connecting; early batches draw on research. You never send results by hand.

CreatStrat has basically become our Monday morning creative meeting. We review what's working, look at the new opportunities it found, choose what we want to test, and the next batch of creative gets produced. I can't imagine going back to planning everything from scratch every week.

Jordan K. · CreatStrat customer

For the screen-by-screen tour, see the product page.

Frequently asked questions

What should a creative agency deliver each week? A weekly ad creative service should deliver the research behind the ads, a test plan, a brief per ad, finished ads in each placement's ratio, Meta copy, written usage rights, a stated answer for ads you won't run, and a read of last week's results.

Who has the rights to ads made by an agency or creative service? It depends on the contract. Look for written terms that say you can use, change and run the ads, and whether those rights continue after you cancel. A promise on the sales page isn't the same thing.

How many ads should an ad creative service deliver per week? There's no universal number. In "Three steps to optimize your performance with creative diversification" (Meta for Business, November 19, 2024), Meta recommends at least 20 diversified ads in Advantage+ shopping campaigns and says the best creative diversification leaders launch new ads weekly. Ask the vendor for a stated weekly count and delivery day.

What is included in a design subscription? It varies by vendor. Some design subscriptions handle requests one at a time in a queue. Before you sign, check whether research, a test plan, Meta copy and written usage rights are included, or only the design work.

What happens to an ad I don't want to run? It depends on the vendor, so ask in writing before you pay. With CreatStrat, you decide whether to run each ad (Terms §13), feedback is optional and steers the next batch, and there is no per-ad approval step.

Put the eight questions to your vendor this week

Send the eight questions to whoever makes your ads now, in writing, and keep the answers. The Gap Scan shows you items 1 and 3, research and an example concept, for a product page you choose.

Free. 3 researched opportunities, 1 customer-avatar gap, and 1 example concept within 24 hours.