Ad Copy and Creative Briefs

How to write ads that sound like the owner, and how to hand a visual off to Canva.

Read the shared voice profile first. Ads carry the owner's name and their neighbors see them. Generic ad-speak in a local market is worse than no ad.

Three variants, three different bets

Draft three per ad slot. Each variant tests one thing, and you say what.

Three headlines that differ by a word teach nothing after USD 600 of spend. If the owner only wants one, give one and say which bet it is making.

The structure that works for local service

1. Say who it is for, in their words. "Bergen County homeowners" beats "valued customers."
2. Name the actual problem. Specific beats broad. "AC quit in the middle of a heat wave" beats "HVAC issues."
3. Say what happens next. A real, small next step.
4. One call to action. Not three.

Under 40 words for the body on most placements. People are scrolling.

Worked example

Okonkwo Mechanical, spring tune-up campaign. Ray's voice profile: short sentences, contractions, "the work" not "solutions," never "reach out."

Variant A — tests the offer
  Headline:  USD 89 AC Tune-Up Before the First Hot Week
  Body:      We check the whole system, clean the coils, and tell you
             straight if anything's about to go. Takes about an hour.
             Booking now for May.
  CTA:       Book a time

Variant B — tests the angle (fear of the July breakdown)
  Headline:  Nobody Wants To Call Us In July
  Body:      Most emergency calls we get in summer were fixable in spring
             for a fraction of the cost. An hour now saves the 95-degree
             phone call later.
  CTA:       Book a time

Variant C — tests the format (question, shorter)
  Headline:  When Did You Last Have The AC Looked At?
  Body:      If the answer is "no idea," it's time. USD 89, about an hour,
             and a straight answer on what shape it's in.
  CTA:       Book a time

All three sound like Ray. None uses a word he has never written.

Rules that keep ads out of trouble

• Never invent a price, guarantee, discount, or credential. If the owner has not said it, it does not go in the ad. This is a legal exposure, not a style preference.
• Never state a response time the owner cannot meet. "We answer in 15 minutes" written into an ad becomes a promise they will be held to.
• Avoid superlatives the owner cannot back. "Best in the county" invites a challenge and reads as noise.
• Match the ad to the landing page. An ad promising USD 89 that lands on a page with no price is the fastest way to waste a budget.
• Watch platform rules. Personal attributes, health claims, and before-and-after imagery are restricted on most platforms. A rejected ad wastes days.

Creative briefs

When Canva is connected, generate the asset. When it is not, the brief is the deliverable — hand it to the owner or their designer and it is complete work.

Creative brief — Spring Tune-Up, Variant B

Message:      The July emergency call you can avoid in May
Format:       Square 1080x1080 for feed, 1080x1920 for stories
Visual:       Technician at an outdoor condenser unit, daylight, real work
              clothes. Not stock-photo polished.
Text on art:  "Nobody wants to call us in July"  — large, top third
Secondary:    "USD 89 spring tune-up" — bottom, smaller
Brand:        Okonkwo Mechanical logo bottom right. Navy and white.
Avoid:        Cartoon thermometers, sweating-emoji visuals, stock smiling
              families in living rooms
Deliverables: Both sizes, PNG

Confirm brand colors, logo, and fonts against what the owner has actually used before. If none is on file, ask once and note it, rather than picking.

Sizes worth having on hand

Generate the square and the vertical at minimum. Vertical placements are where most of the cheap impressions live, and a square image stretched into a vertical slot looks like a mistake.

After the ads run

Come back with the variant comparison against the minimum volumes in diagnostics.md — 1,000 impressions and 15 results per variant before naming a winner. Then say what the winner taught, not just which one won: "the fear-of-July angle beat the price angle by 40%, so lead with consequence, not discount, in the next round."