Influencer Advisory™Top Performing Influencer Ad formats in 2026 - 4
-want to get more views at cheaper CPMs with more conversions
Founder · October 16, 2026 · 10 min read
If you are looking for:
-more ways of getting creatives
-want to get more views at cheaper CPMs with more conversions
-we have a health and wellness product in retailers
1) Format 1:
5 new better finds in costco:
The Costco ads in the Meta ad library
What kind of pr stunt could be made?
Costco teasure hunt idea
Retailer wards/discount/sweepstakes
Have regular consummers take photos of the store - mayb eunique skus?
Founder led ads:
Reddit objection reading:
Street interviews
Sale ads
Creator routine ads
Product explainers
Where to buy it ads
Skits and montages
Creative, making ads people want to watch
Creative tips
Ridge built its Marques Brownlee ad as a story about Marques, opening on his own old clip saying he had 74 subscribers, before cutting to him becoming Ridge's chief creative partner.
““We've got like the Marques story is really cool. We actually hasn't been our best performing content, but like the way we've approached it from a storytelling standpoint is like telling the story of Marques. We've quickly got like where we started. He's got these crazy videos of him being like 13 years old and he's like he's got he's got this clip where he goes, "I've got 74 subscribers." And like and there's like all these clips of him over time and then it cuts to like an integration we did a couple months ago where he's like, "I've become the chief creative partner of Ridge." And whatever. So, it's it ends up being this very like robust story.””
That long form storytelling does not work in the Instagram feed, only on YouTube.
““And like and there's like all these clips of him over time and then it cuts to like an integration we did a couple months ago where he's like, "I've become the chief creative partner of Ridge." And whatever. So, it's it ends up being this very like robust story. We're like qualifying Marques, we're leading into him joining Ridge and then we're talking about like his role in Ridge and what Ridge is as a brand. And like that sort of longer form storytelling just won't perform. At least we haven't found it to perform in a place like the Instagram feed. Yeah. Makes sense to me. the same thing. Like we're like when we provide value outside of of just hey, here's our produc”
The reference example is a ColorPop creator collaboration that built the world's biggest lipstick and got millions of views.
““We had this like spray and pray sales development like approach where it's like, "Let's just get cheap CPMs on as many channels as possible." And that worked for a while, but now what our focus is is, "How are we like partnering with creators to make meaningful content?" We've been saying, "How do we make the ads more like content, things people want to watch?" Uh Ashton, for instance, had given me this example of what they'd done at ColorPop where they worked with a creator and built like the world's biggest lipstick. I'm sure you I don't know if you've seen that one, but like super rad. Got millions of views. And the whole I think the whole video was about it.””
A Smarter Every Day video Ridge sponsored performed three times better than expected because the brand was built into the experiment.
““All Your Guns hooks on Meta? Is that that guy? No, no, no. We've got I thought that's where you were going with it, like you use that for for Meta content. Well, so the So, I am eventually going to get there, but but this Smarter Every Day video all of a sudden performed like three times better than we would have ever expected, and it was because we were like such an integral part of the video. And the ad read was like very native to the content and it ended up being like 8 minutes or something. It was like performed really, really well. And what we took from that is like how can we do that more scalably? And we did that our sweepstakes last year where we gave away the truck.””
Ridge scaled the idea by shipping its sweepstakes truck around the country so six creators could film with it.
““Well, so the So, I am eventually going to get there, but but this Smarter Every Day video all of a sudden performed like three times better than we would have ever expected, and it was because we were like such an integral part of the video. And the ad read was like very native to the content and it ended up being like 8 minutes or something. It was like performed really, really well. And what we took from that is like how can we do that more scalably? And we did that our sweepstakes last year where we gave away the truck. We like shipped the truck around the country so we could get it in the videos of like six creators last year. And each of those videos performed like multiples above what we would otherwise expect. We had like a relatively clean test. We had people who didn't have the truck and we people who did have the truck.””
Ridge holds monthly calls with the MKBHD team on how to tell the Ridge story.
““I mean, what it really comes down to which like I think we're all hitting is just getting better at content and I think Marques Brownlee has a very unique way for us to get better at content. Whether that is through creating more content with him that it just ports better to organic social and will benefit paid ads and things like that, but also learning from like the greatest storytellers. We've got monthly calls with their team where we're going in-depth on like how can we better tell the Ridge story or how can we leverage a new product or category to to form some sort of content program. Um that's really what it is and that's not a hot take.””
Making something different for traditional media placements can attract more attention due to the noise on social media.
““And then the second thing I would also look at is when we're looking at reallocation while people say TV billboard is dead I believe it's still it's it's it's still here. It's not going anywhere. Um and really that asset has become even more of an opportunity if you now get more creative on how to use these traditional uh placements that uh aren't aren't as popular. So if you can make something different, media will pick it up a lot more because of that space of of so much noise happening in social. So I would say it's less of cutting it completely. It's more of reinovating and making my team think of how to better leverage those other assets to make more of a digital conversation.””
Get content flow up
Chaining into concepts
The future of paid media, as emphasized by Meta, is that selling will be primarily done by creators.
““But, I just wanted to jump in and say that even though these AI statics are really, really cool, you are probably going to struggle to get performance on Meta in the coming months and years unless you continue to work with real creators and use real content. I actually just went to the Meta Performance Summit, and something that they really emphasized was that the future that they see for paid media is that selling is going to be primarily done by creators, which is why I have really loved partnering with Storyblocks for all these years because a human-made content library is an absolute essential for both creators and UGC content.””
Overnight Oats has amazing employee-generated content, with their warehouse content being the gold standard in D2C.
““So just more inspiration on how you can expand your operations and how you can see a light at the end of the tunnel if you are a founder and you're wondering like hey, am I always going to be on the hook for this? No, there are absolutely pathways to getting other creators and other faces and other employees into your ad account and it's going to benefit you to do so. So these are the brands that I look at that have really, you know, helped bring that to life for other brands. Overnight Oats. Now Overnight Oats is another brand that honestly just had amazing EGC employee generated content. Their warehouse content is bar none the gold standard in D2C. And for a few years they've really been masters at creating content that overcomes objections, right? Like this ad creative right here.””