The most useful creative research is your own ad library

Brands regularly pay for category research and almost never systematically read the thing sitting in their own account: every ad they have run, and what each one did.

Why it gets skipped

Because it is unglamorous, because the data is messy, and because nobody owns it. Media owns performance, creative owns production, and the join between them is somebody's spreadsheet.

What a proper read gives you

Which openings you over-index on. Almost every library is more concentrated than its owners think. Three hook families usually account for most of it.

Which ones you have never tried. More useful than the above, and only visible once the library is classified.

What your destinations are doing. Where each ad points, and whether the page repeats the promise. This is where the money usually is.

How to start without tooling

Take the top twenty by spend. Write the promise of each in one sentence. Group them. Count. You will find the concentration inside an hour, and it will change the next brief more than any category report.