Elevating Small Business Ads: The Creative Transformations Project

Company

Meta

Role

Lead Designer

Duration

6 months

Tags

B2C, Advertising

Overview

Creative Transformations was a strategic initiative within Meta’s Small Business Advertising (SBA) team aimed at enhancing ad creative quality and diversity for small business advertisers. The goal was to simplify the creative process, enabling SMBs to produce high-quality ads with minimal effort, ultimately driving better engagement and performance on the platform.

Problem

Small and medium-sized businesses (SMBs) often struggle with creating effective ad creatives due to limited resources and expertise. They are overwhelmed by the number of decisions required, have limited creative inventory, and struggle to translate their business goals into compelling ads. This leads to suboptimal ad performance and advertiser churn.

🎨 Lack of Creative Tools

❌ Low Ad Performance

⏰ Time Constraints

Editing tools already available at the time for Facebook / Instagram Stories

“I wish I had more editing tools within Facebook itself—different backgrounds, fonts, resizing, or creating collages. Instead, I end up using PowerPoint for these edits.”

Research Study Participant, shared by Arushi Juneja, User Researcher

Solution

We developed Creative Transformations, a suite of automated tools designed to enhance the quality and diversity of ad creatives by applying modifications like image cropping, video highlights, text animations, and more. These tools were integrated into existing ad flows, reducing the complexity of ad creation and empowering SMBs to create effective ads without advanced design skills.

Early concept of Creative Transformations, used on an executive presentation

Key Features

  • Automated Enhancements

    Simple, automated transformations to improve the visual quality and performance of creatives.

  • Ad4Ad Integration

    Visual enhancements showcased within Ad Previews to demonstrate the impact of creative improvements.

  • Inspiration from Leading Tools

    Leveraged best practices from tools like Canva and Facebook’s organic creative tools to develop intuitive and effective enhancements.

Design Process

  1. Research & Analysis

  • Leveraging Generative Research

    Partnered with the User Research team to gain a comprehensive understanding of SMB challenges through generative research. This collaboration provided valuable insights into advertiser pain points and creative hurdles, setting the foundation for the project.

  • Competitive Analysis

    Conducted a detailed analysis of external platforms like Canva and internal products to identify best practices in creative editing and automation. This analysis informed the design of key features and functionalities for Creative Transformations.

  • Synthesizing Insights

    Merged findings from the research team with competitive analysis insights to shape the initial design direction. This synthesis helped prioritize features and informed the strategic approach for improving the creative capabilities of SMB advertisers.

Competitive Analysis done on Canva, Instagram, and Facebook

  1. Design Explorations

Focused on entry points and ad previews with different effects to visualize how creative transformations could enhance the ad creation workflow.

  1. Strategic Planning: Three-Layer System Vision

Our approach was structured around a Three-Layer System to optimize the creative experience for SMBs, each layer addressing distinct user needs and enhancing creative quality step-by-step:

  1. Top Layer – Entry Points:

    Focuses on integrating automated transformations directly into the ad creation process.

  1. Middle Layer - Creative Customization

    Introduces more complex creative tools once initial interest is validated.

  1. Bottom Layer - Backend Enhancements

    Supports advanced features and customization capabilities with robust backend integrations.

Effects

Templates

Filters

Enhance Visuals

  1. Partnership with Showreels Team

Collaborated with the Showreels team to integrate their Automatic Creative Composition technology into Creative Transformations. Leveraged their Template Playbook to build dynamic ad templates that enhanced creative quality and consistency across different formats.

Showreels Template Playbook: Automated ad templates for Facebook Feed and Stories,

enhancing creative quality with minimal effort.

  1. Iterative Design & Handoff

Refined designs through multiple iterations to align with Showreels’ patterns. Conducted a detailed handoff to engineering using a user story map that outlined release phases. This structured approach ensured that each feature was prioritized and released incrementally, facilitating smoother implementation and feedback loops.

Before and after integrating Showreels functionality

End to end flow of Creative Transformations

Additional explorations made for entry points

Additional explorations made for the quick edition experience

Impact

Enhanced Ad Performance

Initial testing showed a 20% increase in creative quality scores, resulting in a 15% improvement in engagement rates and a 10% increase in click-through rates (CTR).

Reduced Time to Create Ads

Automated tools reduced the time required for SMBs to create effective ad creatives by 35%, increasing their overall ad spend by 25%.

Adoption & Retention

The introduction of Creative Transformations led to a 30% increase in the adoption of creative tools and a 15% increase in advertiser retention rates over the first six months.

Scalability

The modular design allowed for easy expansion to new ad formats, resulting in a 40% increase in creative diversity across ad formats, including Stories and Reels.


Disclaimer: Metrics have been rounded for easy reading

Challenges

🚧 Complex Technical Integration

Adapting creative transformations for different ad formats required significant backend changes, which impacted the development timeline.

🔄 Organizational Changes

The project faced delays as engineers were reassigned to other teams, affecting the resource allocation and momentum of the project.

🧩 Cross-Team Collaboration

Coordinating between multiple teams, including Showreels and Ads Growth, required extensive alignment and communication to integrate features smoothly.

📈 Balancing Automation with Control

Striking the right balance between automated creative solutions and user control posed a challenge, as advertisers needed flexibility without sacrificing simplicity.

Conclusion

Working on Creative Transformations was a unique experience that challenged me to blend strategic thinking with hands-on design execution. It taught me the importance of balancing user needs with business goals, especially in a complex environment like Meta’s ad ecosystem.


One key takeaway was the value of cross-team collaboration. Partnering with the Showreels team and aligning our vision allowed us to create a cohesive product that leveraged the strengths of each group. I also learned the significance of being adaptable—navigating shifting team dynamics and resource constraints pushed me to find creative solutions and maintain project momentum.


Ultimately, this project reinforced my belief in the power of design systems to create scalable, impactful products. By integrating automated creative solutions, we empowered small businesses to achieve professional-quality ads with minimal effort, demonstrating how thoughtful design can drive real-world impact.

Let’s Connect!

Feel free to reach out if you’d like to chat about design, collaborations, or just to say hi! I’m always excited to connect and share ideas.

javierhumaran@gmail.com

Crafted with passion in Colorado 🏔️🇺🇸