Branding vs. Performance mobile ads: A creative strategy guide

A fresh look at creatives: Webinar overview

On May 5, M+C Saatchi Performance and Jampp hosted “Brand vs. Performance: Unlocking the Power of Performance Creatives for Brands”, a live session exploring how to design creatives that deliver measurable results.

Featured speakers:

This article recaps key insights and takeaways from the discussion, including:

• Insights from top marketers on today’s most effective creative ad strategies
• Can one ad creative drive both brand awareness and performance results?
• The growing importance of performance-driven creatives in modern marketing
• Adapting your creative assets for each stage of the customer journey

Key insights from our webinar polls: How mobile marketers are approaching creatives in 2025

During the webinar, we ran three live polls to get a clear picture of how marketers think about performance creatives today. The results provide a snapshot of global creative practices and priorities.

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Are you currently developing any specific performance creative assets?

Most participants are already investing in performance creatives, indicating growing awareness of the importance of performance-dedicated assets. Still, a notable number of marketers rely solely on brand creatives or plan to make the shift soon.

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Who is currently responsible for developing creatives for the brand?

In-house teams lead the pack, far ahead of agencies or freelancers. This reflects a larger industry trend toward faster iteration, tighter collaboration with performance teams, and internal creative ownership.

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Are you using AI for the generation or analysis of creatives? 

Most said they use AI for both creative generation and analysis. A smaller group uses AI for a single, specific aspect of their workflow, and only a few said they aren’t using AI at all. This shift reinforces what we see across the industry: AI is becoming an essential tool for creative efficiency and personalization at scale.

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Can one creative do it all?

A common misconception is that a single ad can be used for both branding and performance campaigns—but can one creative do it all? Not really, trying to make one creative do it all can hurt performance.

“Brand and performance creatives have very different purposes. You can’t just slap on a CTA to your ad and call it action-driven. Try to stay true to your brand's tone of voice, the look and feel, and the narrative, while you are also focusing on conversion.” —Allita Crasto, Global Head of Creative at M&C Saatchi Performance.

Brand creatives are built for emotional resonance and long-term awareness. Performance creatives are designed for action: installs, sign-ups, purchases, bookings, trades. Marketers should treat these as different creative objectives—each optimized for different moments in the user journey.

The strategic role of performance creatives

“As marketers, it is a very crowded marketplace, probably more so than ever right now. In terms of performance creatives, a well-designed one can directly impact the return on investment, driving better conversion rates.” —Benjamin Waters, Head of APAC at Jampp.

Creatives are the visible face of your brand, and they can make or break the success of your campaign. It's not just about being on-brand, it's about being on-point for the moment, the mindset, and the medium.

"We see between 6,000 and 10,000 ads a day—so standing out is non-negotiable." —Benjamin Waters, Head of APAC at Jampp.

As signal loss and attribution gaps continue to grow across platforms and devices, creatives have become a key lever for performance optimization. While privacy-first changes have transformed bidding strategies, creative assets still offer flexibility. You can test and improve them as needed, making them a key driver of performance in a more privacy-aware ecosystem.

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Building creatives for every funnel stage

The most effective performance strategies are stage-aware and built with a clear understanding of the user journey. Performance creatives should be designed not just for impact, but with the specific intent to trigger the right action at the right moment.

• Top funnel: Grab attention with bold visuals, hooks, and storytelling that align with user interests. Formats like short videos—that show the app interface and highlight the key benefit your brand offers—can help brands break through the noise and spark curiosity at first glance.
• Mid funnel: Deepen engagement by highlighting product features, benefits, and social proof that builds credibility. Creative formats like Tutorial Ads and UGC-style content can be especially effective at this stage, helping users better understand how a product works or how it fits into their everyday lives.
• Bottom funnel: Spark conversion with urgency-driven messaging, targeted CTAs, and personalized creative tailored to the user’s past behavior or purchase intent. A deep link that leads users straight back to an abandoned cart can help secure a purchase, while a Multiproduct Ad showcasing a variety of items can spark curiosity, aid in product discovery, and encourage conversion.‍

This funnel-driven approach allows brands to guide users from awareness to action with creatives that adapt both in format and message.

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Why context matters: Platform usage and user intent

One of the key insights from the webinar was that creative performance is closely linked to the circumstances in which users experience it. A message that performs well in one environment may fall flat in another if the context isn’t accounted for.

This is especially true in channels like Connected TV (CTV), where users are typically in a lean-back setting—watching content from their sofa, often with a remote in hand and no direct way to click. Including a QR code as a CTA can work if only the timing is strategic and the code remains visible long enough.

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Key takeaways from the webinar

Performance creatives are so much more than just branded assets—they’re strategic tools that shape user journeys and increase your ROI. Here are 3 key takeaways to remember:

• Creatives should align with the user journey. A good performance creative is built to encourage a specific action at a specific stage of the funnel. All the elements in that ad—from the copy and visuals to the CTA—should work together to push that action forward. 
• Creative is a lever you own. Performance creatives are assets that mobile marketers and growth partners can fully shape, optimize, and scale. In the context of privacy-first initiatives, where access to user-level data and precise attribution is more limited, this control is more valuable than ever.‍
• Context is everything. Adapt creatives to where users are and how they behave: a person watching CTV from their sofa with a remote in hand won’t respond the same way as someone scrolling through their phone on the go.

From format selection to message clarity, building impactful performance creatives requires strategy, agility, and a deep understanding of your user. 

Ready to take your creative strategy to the next level? Watch the full webinar for more insights or contact us to talk to one of our experts.

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