🧠 How I Learned to Make Ads That Sell

Hey there,

Welcome back to the 65th edition of Brandish,

Your guide to crafting an iconic brand.

Heads Up ⚠️

This isn’t your typical newsletter.

This week I wanted to do something a little different. 

Instead of the usual branding lesson. 

Today’s newsletter will be about how I learned everything I know today about creating a winning ad, and some lessons I learned along the way.

So, if you don’t want to learn extremely valuable insights today, now would be a great time to stop reading. 

Now, for those of you who want to become better at consistently creating winning ads. 

Kick back, 

Pop open a can of Brez, 

And let’s dive in!

Finding My Passion in Design

My journey in advertising started with a love for design that dates all the way back to middle school. 

I spent hours experimenting with Adobe software, learning through trial and error. 

Even though I didn’t have access to the best tools, I found ways to bring ideas to life. 

This hobby quickly turned into a passion for visual storytelling.

Which eventually led me to pursuing a formal education in graphic design in New York.

But while my education sharpened my technical skills, something was still missing.

The focus was on making things look good, but there wasn’t much attention on how design could actually sell.

This realization sparked my curiosity—how could design influence someone’s decision to buy? 

That’s where I shifted from simply creating appealing visuals to understanding the psychology behind consumer behavior.

Mad Men

Believe it or not, one of the main reasons I pursued a career in advertising was because of the show Mad Men.

If you haven’t seen it, the show is about Don Draper, the creative director who was the ultimate “man’s man.” 

He smoked, was charismatic, and made advertising actually look cool. 

As a kid, I was hooked.

Now, I’m not saying Mad Men was the only reason I got into this field, but it was definitely one of the main ones. 

Don Draper made being a creative director look like the sickest job in the world. 

Even though advertising today looks a lot different, the principles I saw in that show—crafting a narrative, connecting with people emotionally—are still just as relevant.

Let’s hit the pause button for a second to talk about an advertising tool that can boost your AOV without you even having to lift a finger.

Tool of the Week

Managing white space is a well-known factor in good design. Sometimes it pays to just let the elements of the page breathe a little. 

And other times it pays to leverage your on-page real estate as much as possible. 

I see brands wasting valuable space in their checkout and post-purchase pages all the time. 

At Obvi, our thank you page isn’t just a polite note to the customer—it’s a revenue generator.

Thanks to Aftersell, we don’t have to think too hard about it either. 

Their Network Offers serve smart, targeted promotions from 400 Mega-brands (think Disney or Amazon) in our post-purchase flow. If our customer opts in, we get paid.

So far, we’ve been able to add an extra $0.45 in pure profit per transaction. As a high-volume seller, that translates to an extra five figures to our bottom line.   

In other words, Aftersell helps us make this a win-win-win.

The customer gets a great deal, the brand gets targeted exposure, and we get incremental profit.

Click here for a free demo to find out how to turn some white space into green space 🤑 

Transitioning from Organic Content to Paid Media

When I joined Shredz, paid media was still an emerging concept. 

Initially, my role centered around creating organic content for social media feeds, which were largely chronological. 

The goal back then was more about making the posts look good rather than focusing on sales.

Working with Arvin Lal, the CEO of Shredz, really changed the way I thought about this.

Arvin always reminded me that while pretty pictures are nice, they don’t always lead to sales.

He introduced me to the idea of "ugly ads," a concept made popular by Barry Hott. It’s all about how simple, straightforward ads often perform better than fancy, polished ones.

This was a huge turning point for me.

I realized that in advertising, results are often more important than how things look.

Arvin pushed me to experiment with different sizes, colors, and text placement.

We ran tests to see what our audience responded to best.

Over time, my designs moved from just looking good to being visuals that actually engaged people and boosted conversions.

Data Driven Design

As we moved from organic content to paid ads, I learned how important it is to use data when making design decisions.

At Shredz, I worked closely with Ron, who handled analytics, to see how well my designs were performing. 

We carefully tested everything—background colors, text sizes, and even the shapes of buttons—to figure out what worked best for our audience.

This detailed testing helped me really understand performance marketing.

These days, every designer needs to have some analytical skills.

Being able to read data and adjust designs based on it is key to success.

In our early tests, we found that even small changes—like switching from a pink to a white background—could have a big impact on how the ads performed. The more we tested, the clearer our approach became.

The ads that consistently did well were always about hierarchy: making sure the main message stood out and grabbed attention.

Learning by Doing

When Facebook ads first started gaining traction, I was pumped to dive into this new opportunity.

This is also around the time when me and Ash first started our Facebook ad agency (before founding Obvi).

Our first goal was to test the strategies we had developed at Shredz on a larger scale.

At the time, Facebook’s ad rules were pretty strict. 

One of the biggest challenges was the text overlay rule—only 20% of an image could contain text.

At the time, the best way around it was to turn static images into videos.

By doing that we could get past the text limit and have more creative flexibility.

But creating successful ads wasn’t just about breaking the rules—it was about understanding hierarchy.

The key is to highlight what matters most to your audience and present it in a way that grabs their attention.

This approach goes beyond design.

You need to really understand what your audience wants and what problems they’re trying to solve.

Wrapping Up

Looking back, my journey in advertising has been a blend of creativity, trial and error, and a whole lot of learning. 

From early design days, to Mad Men-style storytelling, to cracking the code on Facebook ads, each step has taught me something invaluable.

The ad world is always evolving, and so should we.

Whether you’re just starting out or refining your craft, the key is to stay curious, test everything, and keep adapting.

Behind every successful ad is a combination of smart design, great storytelling, and real data.

That’s all I have this week!

As always, I appreciate you,

And until next time,

Ankit