Valid

We built two AI influencer personas: Mia and Marcus. Mia hit 54K Instagram followers in 3 weeks. Marcus just crossed 100K followers. And when brands “hire” them to promote their content, they get the same or better results that they would with human influencers. Mia and Marcus have real audiences that we built the old-fashioned way: by posting great content that resonates with their target audience. Marcus targets a tech audience that skews male. Mia specifically targets users interested in women’s health and wellness. We figure out what resonates with the same playbook we use for paid media. We find organic content that's already performing well in the target category, then reverse-engineer what made it work: script, format, hook, pacing, etc. That’s how we’re able to grow followers by tens of thousands every week. And we take the same approach to our AI influencers’ sponsored posts. We're trying to spawn an army of these guys. In the future, I imagine treating our army of AI creators as testable variables, the same way we treat any other creative asset. We’ll be able to run sponsored posts across multiple AI creators, measure which one connects with the brand, then keep going back to the one that performs. It's the same logic as going back to a human creator whose creative does really well. We’re just doing it with AI. Have you experimented with AI influencers yet?

Every ad in this reel was made by Valid in the last 90 days. Here's what we've learned about making creative that actually performs. It's equal parts art and science. A few things that really matter: 1) Create for a very niche audience. The viewer needs to feel like "that's totally me." Good performance ads don't have broad appeal. 2)The ad should spark curiosity. You don't need to do the full sell in the 15-second ad. You need to get the person to click on the product. Let the landing page do its job. 3)A good hook stops the scroll and makes you watch to the end. 4)When you have a winning concept, iterate. 5)Don't let ad concepts that feel good die if they don't work right away. If your gut says it'll work, often you're just 10% away from a winner. You'll notice none of this has to do with whether it's AI or not. AI is an implementation detail. To make good ads with AI, the process is the same as making good ads the old way. We still judge effectiveness on ROAS. Not on the fact that it's AI.

AI ads are finally here. And they don't suck. For 6 months, we've been quietly building Valid AI Creatives and we've already worked with brands like Replit, Tolan, and HoneyHomes. The problem with AI ads isn't the technology. It's that 99% of AI creative feels soulless. Uncanny. Skippable. So we built something different: AI production, human thinking. Here's how it works: 1. We connect to your ad account 2. We study what's actually working 3. We find concepts worth producing 4. We make the ads and launch them And the early results are wild: • 17x higher win-rate than other agencies in one account • 71% drop in CPA in another • Earned #1 spot in multiple accounts spending over $1M/month • Media buyers allocate 53% of their spend to our creatives on average That last one matters most. Media buyers don't throw money at bad creative. They follow performance. If you want creative that stops the scroll and actually converts, we're ready.

Turns out… AI ads don’t have to feel like AI ads. AI speed. Human taste = Faster. Better. Scalable. The early result from our beta customers Valid are wild: • 17x higher win-rate than other agencies in one account • 71% drop in CPA in another • Earned #1 spot in multiple accounts spending over $1M/month • Media buyers allocate 53% of their spend to our creatives on average If you want creative that converts, reach out.

Today I’m excited to announce Valid AI Creatives. Already trusted by brands like Replit, Tolan, and HoneyHomes. For the past 6-months, we've been quietly building a system that produces AI-generated ads engineered to perform on Meta/TikTok. We don't make the uncanny, soulless AI-generated ads you're used to. We’re making creative that stops the scroll. AI ads that make you feel something. Built on real strategy, real hooks, real storytelling. AI-production, human thinking. Here’s exactly how it works: 1. We connect to your ad account 2. We study what's actually working 3. We find concepts worth producing 4. We make the ads and launch them The early result from our beta customers are wild: • 17x higher win-rate than other agencies in one account • 71% drop in CPA in another • Earned #1 spot in multiple accounts spending over $1M/month • Media buyers allocate 53% of their spend to our creatives on average That last one matters most. Media buyers don't throw money at bad creative. They follow performance. If you want creative that stops the scroll and actually converts, we're ready. I’m so excited to bring this out of stealth. Now back to work.

We mispronounced "hazelnuts" on purpose. Here's the full breakdown of why. Watch the Pixar-style animated ad for Coco attached below and you'll catch it. The word "hazelnuts" is off. The pronunciation is wrong. We built it that way from the start. A mispronounced word creates a small cognitive snag. The brain registers something slightly unexpected and holds onto it longer than a clean, polished line. That cognitive snag produces comments. People point it out. Some ask if it's intentional. Some just quote it back. All of that activity registers as engagement. More engagement tells the algorithm the ad earns attention, which lowers the cost to distribute it. We built one deliberately wrong word into the script to move a media-buying metric. That’s the performance data side of things. The other layer to this is the Pixar-style animation, which offers a whole new creative format for storytelling. Traditionally, timelines and budgets kept animation out of the paid feed. Animation is the next creative lever in paid acquisition. Valid Studios is our answer to that. We're in the process of building it now, more to come. But the goal is Super Bowl-level quality, AI-native workflows, and a production timeline measured in days, not months. If you're running paid creative right now, what's the most counterintuitive production decision you've made that moved a performance metric?