full
AI Ads: Stop Making Them Look Real | Camilo Castañeda
Last year, Camilo Castañeda told us none of his AI ads had really scaled past what a real human does. Then he found out he had it backwards. Instead of making AI look real, his team made ads that were clearly AI and put the work into the story. "It didn't really matter if they were AI or not," he says. Now his team has ditched UGC completely and scales brands with nothing but AI creative.
Camilo runs Epic Ads Lab, an ad creative agency, and Ad Creators Lab, a community for brands, media buyers and editors who make ads with AI.
In this episode:
- What one AI ad really costs: the credits, the editor and the strategist
- Why his team moved off UGC, and the ad that got "written three times"
- The AI ad formats working right now, from cinematic drama ads to claymation
- The two reasons he doesn't make AI look real
- How an AI ad gets made, step by step, and the tools and models he uses
- How many ads one editor ships a day, and the weekly review that keeps them good
- Whether Meta's AI label hurts performance
- The one ad he'll never run, no matter how well it converts
CHAPTERS
00:00 Intro
00:47 What changed since our 2025 episode
02:06 Leaving UGC: the ad that gets written three times
03:19 What one AI ad really costs
05:22 AI still can't write the script
08:26 Grading his 2025 prediction
11:55 The AI ad formats working right now
14:29 Making AI UGC look real: two problems
16:58 Brands asking for fake doctors
18:43 AI Pixar ads: saturated or a skill issue
20:13 How an AI ad gets made, step by step
22:34 The AI platforms he uses, and the costs
27:07 How many ads one editor ships a day
32:24 Predicting winners before launch
35:17 Meta's AI labels and performance
40:08 AI UGC overrated, claymation underrated
45:07 Monday morning, for a $100K a month brand
CAMILO CASTAÑEDA
YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/@adswithcami
Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/adswithcami
Ad Creators Lab: https://www.skool.com/adcreatorslab
Epic Ads Lab: https://www.epicadslab.com
ECOM GROWTH INSIDER
Every episode: https://ecomgrowthinsider.com
Our first episode with Camilo: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cBgDkQAGcIc
If you're between $100K and $1M a month and paid is no longer handing you cheaper customers, that's the constraint we work on at HoloGrowth: https://hologrowth.com
Transcript
But I was wrong on a lot of things because I thought I had to make the
Speaker:AI look very realistic and I try and fool everybody.
Speaker:But actually the opposite happened when we started to make AI
Speaker:creatives that were like clearly AI,
Speaker:but we focused more on the storytelling,
Speaker:making them entertaining.
Speaker:And if people call it out for being AI, then it just wasn't a good ad to begin with.
Speaker:Last year, Camilo Castañeda told me that none of their AI ads
Speaker:outscaled a real human.
Speaker:Now he's scaling brands on nothing but AI.
Speaker:His team completely ditched UGC.
Speaker:Instead, they run 10-minute AI dramas.
Speaker:And people know that it's AI, but they don't care.
Speaker:So we got specific.
Speaker:What one single AI ad really costs.
Speaker:Why he's all in on AI ads, but not AI scripts.
Speaker:Whether Meta's new AI tag kills the performance.
Speaker:And the one ad he would never run, no matter how well it converts.
Speaker:Let's go.
Speaker:Camilo, welcome back.
Speaker:What's up, dude?
Speaker:Glad to be back.
Speaker:I'm curious, like last time we talked, it was like mid to last year, mid
Speaker:2025.
Speaker:You were already like doing a lot of AI ads, but you still, at that point,
Speaker:you still said like there was no single AI ad that scaled past what a real
Speaker:human did.
Speaker:Yeah.
Speaker:And I think since then you became even like way more bullish on AI ads.
Speaker:So what would you say, like what has changed?
Speaker:Oh dude well I think the market changed quite a lot so I
Speaker:I knew that if we were to make very good AI creative we would get rid of
Speaker:all the problems that we have with UGC um not to say UGC doesn't work because
Speaker:it does work we have brands that still use UGC but if we could do really
Speaker:good work with AI uh it'll be cheaper and faster um but I was wrong with
Speaker:a lot of things because like I I thought I had to make the AI look very
Speaker:realistic and I try and fool everybody.
Speaker:But actually the opposite happened when we started to make AI creatives
Speaker:that were like clearly AI, but we focused more on the storytelling, making
Speaker:them entertaining.
Speaker:It didn't really matter if they were AI or not.
Speaker:And so now we're just like, we've scaled so many brands with only AI creative.
Speaker:Like we ditch UGC completely in our department.
Speaker:We have like some sunset clients that are on it.
Speaker:So yeah.
Speaker:So the main reason for you to go all in on AI creators which was just like
Speaker:not wanting to have to deal with all the UGC creators anymore
Speaker:Pretty much like I think I was I was disliking the the business model that
Speaker:we had which was dealing with creators and delays and people thinking that
Speaker:uh you know the the issue the main actually the main issue was that the
Speaker:ads were getting written three times you have like the strategist will write
Speaker:the script but then the UGC creator will film it in a way and like like
Speaker:that they wanted to what they thought sometimes it's good with a good creator
Speaker:sometimes they smash it but oftentimes they wouldn't and then the last time
Speaker:it gets written is as a the video editor has to like piece it together right
Speaker:um the problem was that you know if you want to get a new shot done you
Speaker:gotta like give it to the creator the creator has to change it like it takes
Speaker:weeks and whatever um and if the ad does really well the creator's like
Speaker:hey I want more money now so like it became like a huge headache um and
Speaker:in the era that we are now with like the platforms wanting more content
Speaker:and needing more content and fatigues fatiguing a lot faster we needed a
Speaker:way to do more and AI animations and AIGC like really unlocked it for
Speaker:us
Speaker:Nice.
Speaker:Yeah, I would have assumed the main reason to switch was primarily to just
Speaker:save money because it's oftentimes cheaper to work with AI than with creators.
Speaker:But it sounds like that's not the main reason that you switched, right?
Speaker:No I I thought it'd be cheaper and it can be sometimes like you
Speaker:know like let's say a good UGC creator will run you like 300 bucks 400 bucks
Speaker:whatever um a cheap one would be like a couple hundred but like a 10 minute
Speaker:drama ad could probably be
Speaker:60 in credits maybe more plus the editor plus the script writer so
Speaker:like you know the costs do kind of like go up like you don't want to see
Speaker:our bill for the AI credits like it's for it's so it's messed up um but
Speaker:I think at at the unit basis we are making more with less money like and
Speaker:faster as well um although some some concepts do take a while to make
Speaker:Yeah, I assume it's tough to say and really depends on like the type of
Speaker:ad, but do you know like what an AI ad costs you like all in with the platform
Speaker:editors strategist?
Speaker:So on average like a good one maybe like a three to five minute like good
Speaker:singing ad for example um could run you like 50 bucks in credits I'll say
Speaker:20 to 50 bucks in credits which I think is actually really good people go
Speaker:well they expect it to be free um but I think it's good because then if
Speaker:you have pair that with a very good editor and like your editor like on
Speaker:a unit cost could be um 60 200 or something um and then you have
Speaker:a strategist who like writes the script I think like between 150 to 250
Speaker:dollars per creative um and that like that creative has like multiple hook
Speaker:variations for example um and by variations we typically change like the
Speaker:first 10 to 15 seconds of the video that's kind of like where we're at with
Speaker:some of the costs like we do pay our team well though like we we believe
Speaker:in paying like our team like a good amount rather than just like
Speaker:like getting people really cheaply because then you have to train them a
Speaker:lot if that makes sense
Speaker:Yeah, yeah.
Speaker:And have you tried offloading the editor's work or the creator strategist's
Speaker:work also to the AI?
Speaker:So we are not the biggest in terms of giving AI scripting
Speaker:work we don't think like you can prompt the hell out of there you can create
Speaker:a project you can pull all your best ads okay you can create a crazy system
Speaker:but ultimately um what makes a lot of AI slop is just the fact that you
Speaker:only let AI do it we still have a very important process that we do could
Speaker:copy chieven where people go through the scripts and they will you know
Speaker:like line by line make sure that it makes sense make sure it's relevant
Speaker:um
Speaker:like it's never happened where an ad has been like a one hit like straight
Speaker:from the AI my LLM like that never happens and um we feel like
Speaker:the person that understands the customer the most is always going to be
Speaker:the strategist their job is to make sure they understand like okay this
Speaker:is what these people care about because at the end of the day like it's
Speaker:not numbers on like a dashboard they're human beings like they're actual
Speaker:people so um we still have that human touch um and then the the
Speaker:only thing that like end to end right now we're trying to do is do the generation
Speaker:and then the editing with AI as much as we can.
Speaker:But I think
Speaker:we'll get there at some point.
Speaker:Yeah, that would have been my follow-up question, like whether you think
Speaker:AI will get there where you can just with one shot do everything
Speaker:and also how long it will take until we get there because I mean the progress
Speaker:in AI is super fast right now.
Speaker:So quick.
Speaker:I do
Speaker:think you can get an ad from generation to edit with AI no
Speaker:problem I just don't I'm not sure on like how good it will be because like
Speaker:I feel like if if an AI was really good at that it has to follow like a
Speaker:template it has to follow like a step by step we do this for this and this
Speaker:for that and that just means like a lot of ads will look the same but you
Speaker:know at the end of the day it's content like their videos their stories
Speaker:it's you media need that human element to know you know to make it feel
Speaker:like human otherwise it would just feel like content
Speaker:the way I like to describe it is like you know the film Avatar the the three
Speaker:hour film about blue people like it's a film it's fully CGI we all know
Speaker:it's fake um
Speaker:but it was written by humans and it was scripted by humans and it's a story
Speaker:that feels human um such that people just sit down for three hours to actually
Speaker:watch the whole film uh we want to be the kind of people that are like the
Speaker:James Cameron of creative if you like rather than just pump and dump
Speaker:something.
Speaker:Because we believe that that will give us the edge over everybody else who's
Speaker:doing the same pump and dump strategy.
Speaker:Which is why we work with the brands that we work with who are trying to
Speaker:get to brand level, trying to get to big levels rather than just make a
Speaker:few thousand a day or something.
Speaker:Yeah.
Speaker:When you were on the podcast last year, you predicted that AI would be mostly
Speaker:used for testing, and then you used the real creators to scale.
Speaker:Yeah
Speaker:How would you say, how did that hold up?
Speaker:I think
Speaker:you can get really fast scaling a lot of AI creative I think it's more
Speaker:I think it's more like you can have in an account you can have like a high
Speaker:scaling AI ad
Speaker:but you can also have a high scaling UGC ad I think
Speaker:I still do believe that it's an and situation not an or situation
Speaker:because if you look at the content you consume on Instagram, there's a lot
Speaker:of personal brands you watch, a lot of human beings.
Speaker:But you might stumble across a really good AI video.
Speaker:People don't like to admit it, but I'm pretty sure they've seen one AI video
Speaker:and go, oh, this is good, or like, oh, this is interesting, or like whatever.
Speaker:And there are definitely people who will consume things in a different realm,
Speaker:in a different way.
Speaker:If you like,
Speaker:my analogy is, you know, when CGI came out, there were commercials that
Speaker:were fully CGI.
Speaker:It's like, you know, a bank commercial where someone's like stacks of cash
Speaker:everywhere and it's all CGI or whatever.
Speaker:But there's also some commercials that are like a testimonial or an interview.
Speaker:And some people react more and purchase more with one or the other.
Speaker:But if you have an ad account that has all of them and all the variety,
Speaker:like that ultimately is the goal because then you can scale really far from
Speaker:it.
Speaker:Of the brands that you work with, do you know roughly what percentage of
Speaker:their ad spend goes towards AI ads?
Speaker:Yeah I mean one of our top brands is like 90
Speaker:Damn.
Speaker:like 90 percent of it goes to the AI brands
Speaker:ads
Speaker:um
Speaker:we have we have a a client that was only AI up until 1.5
Speaker:mil a month and now they just added some like partnership ads with creators
Speaker:again like just to kind of add on to what is already working not to replace
Speaker:so
Speaker:yeah I like that yeah they got to 1.5 million a month with only AI creative
Speaker:without it it wouldn't be possible like to get the volume to test the angles
Speaker:to find out what was going to work I don't think it would be impossible
Speaker:with UGC
Speaker:Yeah, that's crazy.
Speaker:Is there any specific like industries where you see it just work the best
Speaker:or is it across all of them?
Speaker:Um it I would say AI works across all industries it's just finding the
Speaker:right
Speaker:method to make it work for them so like I get stuff like oh this won't work
Speaker:for like insurance um I'm like okay but then I pull up like an old commercial
Speaker:from compare the market.com, which had a fucking AI meerkat, like a CGI
Speaker:meerkat, like speaking to you that will be on television.
Speaker:So clearly it works.
Speaker:Like it's just, you haven't figured out how to do an AI video for it.
Speaker:Maybe the singing, the singing drama ones doesn't work for insurance, but
Speaker:maybe a cinematic explanation does.
Speaker:And it's made with AI, maybe a whiteboard video that is done with AI can
Speaker:work.
Speaker:It's just finding the right way.
Speaker:And I think a lot of people, they confuse the AI generation with
Speaker:the AI strategy, like the AI script writing.
Speaker:Even if you have a really good creator, a really good human being, or even
Speaker:a very good production, but everything is written poorly, there's no thought
Speaker:behind it, it will still be slop.
Speaker:Yeah.
Speaker:And what do you see what is actually working right now for e-commerce brands?
Speaker:Yeah. Yeah.
Speaker:So for e-commerce runs right now, we have the cinematic drama ads.
Speaker:So they're like,
Speaker:they kind of look real, but you can kind of tell it's AI.
Speaker:But it's like someone walks in on a partner and they're like, you know,
Speaker:it's like very tense.
Speaker:And like there's some pauses in what they're saying.
Speaker:And like, it feels like in Colombia, we have these things called telenovelas,
Speaker:which are like these like very dramatic, overly dramatic TV shows.
Speaker:So those work really well because they build a lot of pain and then at the
Speaker:end of it like there's like a whole story and a payoff and then we have
Speaker:a similar thing but with singing songs and pixel videos so it's like an
Speaker:AI song that's made that explains the whole script and then you have literally
Speaker:like disney characters that are doing ridiculous things um
Speaker:like it's like there's like two ends of the pendulum you have something
Speaker:super ridiculous and then something like it's a bit more grounded and then
Speaker:as well as that the just classic like AI UGC concepts like a green screen
Speaker:woman with some b-roll um the kind of whiteboard explanation one really
Speaker:works really well the claymation stuff still works you just people are just
Speaker:like bad at it um and you're just iterating on those formats over and over
Speaker:again
Speaker:With the cinematic ones, do you think people know that those are AI generated
Speaker:and they just don't care?
Speaker:Yeah, like they don't care. Like people, like it's
Speaker:really funny because we we were going through the comments section of one
Speaker:of the ads we made all the comments were like oh if my husband did that
Speaker:like I'd divorce him it's like oh jeff was such a bad character or whatever
Speaker:um they're not saying this is AI because it clearly is.
Speaker:If you watch a cartoon, if you watch Archer as a cartoon, you're not saying
Speaker:this is a cartoon.
Speaker:It's not real.
Speaker:You know what I mean?
Speaker:I find that my sister, remember we used to watch, we watched once Alien
Speaker:vs. Predator and she's like, oh, this is all fake.
Speaker:It's not real.
Speaker:It's all fiction.
Speaker:People that comment this is AI are the equivalent of her doing that.
Speaker:Whereas I'm like engrossed.
Speaker:I'm like, what's going to happen to Predator?
Speaker:Is Alien going to slice him up or something?
Speaker:That's how I see it.
Speaker:There's always going to be people that think and like call out as AI, but
Speaker:it doesn't really affect your account negatively.
Speaker:There are people who will comment.
Speaker:This is, this is an ad.
Speaker:This is advertising to UGC videos or like, this is a paid actor.
Speaker:Yeah, that will always happen.
Speaker:Yeah.
Speaker:But like what do you think about making AI ads look super super real and
Speaker:like with UGC ads with those like make it so that the the viewer doesn't
Speaker:understand that it's AI generated
Speaker:Yeah, so we have an interesting take here.
Speaker:So we are very good at making these really realistic videos.
Speaker:I don't know if you've seen some of the stuff we've made.
Speaker:There's two, there's two main reasons that we don't do the AI stuff too realistic
Speaker:one is unethical um like if I make an AI UGC creator that's not real and
Speaker:I say, I've done this, I've had this change, it's not real, is the equivalent
Speaker:of having a UGC paid actor saying, I've done this when they haven't.
Speaker:It's like, it's actually unethical.
Speaker:It's actually illegal.
Speaker:You can't do that.
Speaker:And the other one is that sometimes it doesn't really matter because even
Speaker:if you make the AI really realistic, there are often things outside
Speaker:of the generation of the visuals that make it feel not real.
Speaker:It could be the way that they say things.
Speaker:It could be the script in itself and so we just kind of go sometimes just
Speaker:fuck it make it look not so real and just make it funny for example make
Speaker:it entertaining for example and if people call it out for being AI then
Speaker:it just wasn't a good ad to begin with does that make sense?
Speaker:Yeah yeah it does I mean I talked to to create a strategist uh last week
Speaker:on this on the on this podcast and he basically has the opinion to like
Speaker:with AI ads he prefers them to be like very very obvious AI um and
Speaker:like really make sure that people understand that it's AI um with the like
Speaker:super realistic AI stuff it's kind of like you said like on the one side
Speaker:it's unethical and could be illegal but if you would pay an actor to do
Speaker:the same thing it would be exactly the same
Speaker:Exactly
Speaker:um I know like the the FTC in the US like there was a lawsuit about someone
Speaker:using AI ads but it was just because it was like a fake testimonial and
Speaker:it was like made like a like like a fake testimonial and if it would have
Speaker:been a paid actor it would have been exactly the same thing
Speaker:100% I think stay away from that stay away from doctors not
Speaker:a big fan we've helped brands scale to 100k days without
Speaker:having to do that so we're just going to stay not doing it and just become
Speaker:a better marketer as well just get better at
Speaker:entertainment and making content
Speaker:Yeah.
Speaker:How often do you get brands ask you to do stuff like that?
Speaker:All the time bro
Speaker:a lot of brands are just coming up to us just like hey we want to do these
Speaker:creatives and everything the thing is like being real to get really good
Speaker:at making these ads it's not as plug and play as people think it is
Speaker:because even if you have a good Claude skill even if you have a good system
Speaker:having somebody who understands content understands entertainment understands
Speaker:visuals is very important like one of our editors Narek he loves cinema
Speaker:he loves movies and so he knows how to build a very emotional scene in
Speaker:a video the to point where he's like okay I know what camera shot I need
Speaker:I don't know what and like with AI is so much easier I can just say this
Speaker:camera show and I have a fully dramatic video or one that's like you know
Speaker:emotional for example another editor we have he's a musician so when he's
Speaker:doing these singing ads he knows how to make the songs really good he knows
Speaker:when the crescendos come in and how to build tension in that way so
Speaker:like it really does come down to the talent that you have to make them so
Speaker:that's my take on it
Speaker:Yeah they just have more leverage on the skills that they already have and
Speaker:can just use them right
Speaker:100%.
Speaker:I know a lot of businesses want to automate it and they want it to be like
Speaker:plug and play.
Speaker:And you can, but I think it's the equivalent of just having an editor edit
Speaker:a bunch of B-roll with a voiceover before AI.
Speaker:I think
Speaker:you can get something, but I don't think it's worth your time.
Speaker:Think you might as well make time to make good creative with really high
Speaker:intent.
Speaker:Yeah, that makes sense.
Speaker:Freddy, who I talked to last week on here, he said that AI Pixar ads are
Speaker:completely saturated.
Speaker:You mentioned you think it's just a skill issue?
Speaker:It's a hundred percent a skill issue we just had a pixel ad right now that
Speaker:just scaled to for our brands um for if like
Speaker:I'm sure he has a reason for for saying that but
Speaker:I'll tell you I'll tell another example
Speaker:and I made the same mistake uh three weeks ago I said to somebody like the
Speaker:those talking object ads the ones with someone saying like I'm a whatever
Speaker:and I do this like I'm an apple and I'm good for your gut I was like saturated
Speaker:doesn't work don't do it ever again and then we found uh one of our clients
Speaker:that that concept does work but they iterated on it by rather than saying,
Speaker:I'm magnesium, I help you sleep.
Speaker:It's like magnesium is telling you about stuff.
Speaker:It's like magnesium is saying like, the reason you can't sleep.
Speaker:And it's like magnesium is teaching you about stuff rather than just saying
Speaker:like that.
Speaker:And so I do think it's a skill issue where you have this format, you have
Speaker:this style of making a video.
Speaker:Just have to figure out a way to make it work and update it.
Speaker:Because people do get tired of the same stuff.
Speaker:People get tired of
Speaker:Mr. Beast videos.
Speaker:People get tired of netflix shows like it's gonna happen so you gotta just
Speaker:try something new with it
Speaker:Yeah, yeah, that makes sense.
Speaker:So right now, like when you want to create a new AI
Speaker:ad, like how does the whole process look like for you?
Speaker:100 so we obviously start with the creative strategy so that's like a whole
Speaker:thing in itself uh you have you know doing the research you're understanding
Speaker:your customer you're understanding content.
Speaker:You might be looking at what's working on the account.
Speaker:But let's say we're jumping ahead and we have our brief.
Speaker:Okay.
Speaker:And our brief is a certain ad format for a certain avatar.
Speaker:And there's a certain story and a certain desire we're focusing on.
Speaker:And we have the script.
Speaker:So we give that script to our video editors.
Speaker:Our video editors essentially go line by line.
Speaker:And they think about, okay, is this going to be a voiceover, for example?
Speaker:Cool.
Speaker:Let's generate the voiceover first.
Speaker:And then we do the visuals if it's one that's like a like a song ad like
Speaker:a song drama ad they would generate the song first
Speaker:and
Speaker:the genre of the song could be like if it's for african-americans it might
Speaker:be like hip-hop if it's for like 50 year old moms it might be like I don't
Speaker:know um I
Speaker:don't know pop or something something like taylor swift style pop um and
Speaker:then once we have like the the song and the audio we then do the visuals
Speaker:so previously you'd have to go on like any AI platform write a bunch of
Speaker:prompts generate images wait generate the videos wait all that stuff um
Speaker:but now you can do something which is called using Claude and MCP so an
Speaker:MCP connects the AI platform to Claude so that you can do everything inside
Speaker:of Claude which is really cool and so like even the images will show up
Speaker:on on Claude which is nice um however like the platforms that offer mcps
Speaker:are typically more expensive so if you do want to do it cheaper you would
Speaker:use something like Kie or fal for example but then you only have the API
Speaker:which means you don't have that kind of interface inside of Claude which
Speaker:is a bit annoying but it is cheaper um but essentially the editors will
Speaker:go through generating each scene by scene and then they put it together
Speaker:either in the edit or they use AI to put some scenes together.
Speaker:And then the rest of the process is pretty straightforward.
Speaker:It's just like making sure the timing is right, adding some extra flair
Speaker:to it, and that's it.
Speaker:Yeah, already mentioned some, but like which tools and platforms do you
Speaker:use the most in your process?
Speaker:Yeah, I don't use Higgsfield.
Speaker:If I do use Higgsfield, they must be paying me a massive bag,
Speaker:mainly because they're quite expensive.
Speaker:And I just don't like some of the practices they do.
Speaker:We used to use Arcads, but now we use one called MaxFusion, which is really
Speaker:good.
Speaker:That said, we don't use one tool.
Speaker:So we use MaxFusion, we use OpenArt and we use Kie right now and fal as
Speaker:well.
Speaker:And basically, it really just comes down to which tool gives us the best
Speaker:bang for our buck.
Speaker:MaxFusion is really nice because it's basically built for AI and it has
Speaker:the MCP, but it's very costly for some stuff.
Speaker:So if we do a bunch of Seedance things, we're going to go through all
Speaker:our costs.
Speaker:So we actually don't even use it.
Speaker:It doesn't make business sense to use it.
Speaker:Instead, we'll use something like Kie or fal, which is a lot cheaper.
Speaker:And so at the moment, the biggest gap in the AI space is making sure we
Speaker:can do things really fast for really cheap.
Speaker:Once we can do that, then it's game over.
Speaker:It doesn't matter the platform or whatever.
Speaker:So yeah, those are the tools that we use.
Speaker:And by the way, these tools that I mentioned, Kie, fal, MaxFusion, like
Speaker:they have inside them all the different models.
Speaker:They have Nano Banana, they have Google Omni Flash, they have like ChatGPT.
Speaker:And it's great because you don't have to like go and have all these different
Speaker:subscriptions to different platforms.
Speaker:So it just saves you a lot of time.
Speaker:If I was like starting out from the beginning, I'd find one platform to
Speaker:use that has all of them.
Speaker:Then I can just use that to generate my ads.
Speaker:And inside those tools, like which models are you usually using?
Speaker:Yeah good question so for AI UGC like realism I
Speaker:would die on the hill that Nano Banana Pro is the best like ChatGPT
Speaker:image 2 is trained on stuff that looks too polished whereas Nano Banana
Speaker:pro was trained on stuff that isn't um that's for people right for
Speaker:something like objects
Speaker:you can use ChatGPT
Speaker:you can use Seedream which is a very cheap one
Speaker:those typically are very good for like the models
Speaker:but anything that has text like a label or something you definitely want
Speaker:to use ChatGPT image
Speaker:Nano Banana 2 can be for that the most good is that with these MCPs and
Speaker:these APIs you can just tell it to use the best tool for the best job with
Speaker:Claude and it just saves you all this time and thinking for the video side
Speaker:anything that's UGC, we use Seedance or Google Omni Flash
Speaker:Google Omni Flash is really good but you do have to prompt it a lot you
Speaker:have to give it a lot of you have to say a lot of things
Speaker:But for Seedance you can give it references, like give it good images
Speaker:and good videos, even like good sound so you have that consistent character
Speaker:flow does that make sense?
Speaker:Yeah yeah it does
Speaker:and like what would you say like when when working with those tools like
Speaker:what is the most important aspect uh that where a human right now still
Speaker:has to do the work Based on what you said, I think it's like the research,
Speaker:the copywriting and the prompting for the tools.
Speaker:Yeah, well, our team doesn't really prompt a lot.
Speaker:Like, we're not very...
Speaker:We do, like...
Speaker:For the animation stuff, you do have to be, like, prompt a little bit.
Speaker:But we just reference Max.
Speaker:So you find good references of stuff.
Speaker:Like for AI UGC, we will find a good reference image of like a good creator
Speaker:that looks like our avatar, for example.
Speaker:For the Pixar animation ones, it's a bit easier.
Speaker:You can say, oh, this is the style.
Speaker:Make me a character sheet for, you know, a Mexican dude on like a 50
Speaker:-year-old male or whatever.
Speaker:And it'll get you there pretty much like really easily.
Speaker:Those are the manual things we do.
Speaker:And the other manual thing is like
Speaker:Checking that the shots look good like sometimes AI will give you these
Speaker:weird like things where like someone's looking through a window or like
Speaker:they're inside the house and the people are it's really weird like it just
Speaker:won't work
Speaker:So sometimes like the kind of realism
Speaker:of the framing and composition gets broken so that's when a human being
Speaker:will check it
Speaker:Got it.
Speaker:And since switching all the process to AI, how much has
Speaker:the output of your team changed?
Speaker:Like right now, how much can one editor or one strategist put out in a day
Speaker:in terms of ads?
Speaker:Yeah, if we talk about strategies, they can probably pump like, you know,
Speaker:10, maybe 15, 20 concepts a week, like really good ones.
Speaker:If you want it to be scrappy, they can do more per day.
Speaker:For the editors probably like two ads a day is like a good
Speaker:number to aim for that we try to get our team to do for the videos that
Speaker:are like 10 minutes long like really long drama ads
Speaker:maybe like less maybe like one
Speaker:Other day if you like because they're very long
Speaker:But we're just trying to make it so that the long ones take the same time
Speaker:as the short ones that's our main goal
Speaker:But it's like if you're trying to make a movie it's going to take you longer
Speaker:than it is to make a short so it's just that kind of game that we're playing.
Speaker:Interesting.
Speaker:I would have thought that the output would have been higher from an editor.
Speaker:I mean, with the long one, it kind of makes sense.
Speaker:Like there's a lot that goes into it.
Speaker:But just in terms of like normal ads that are like one to two minutes, would
Speaker:have thought that they can do more than two a day.
Speaker:You can don't get me wrong you can but will it be good is the main question.
Speaker:Like, would they actually be good ads?
Speaker:Like, we just have a very high standard of like, like, we can't just let
Speaker:AI do everything because if I watch an ad and it doesn't interest me, it's
Speaker:not like entertaining, like, it's not going to be good.
Speaker:Like, it's not just about getting the clips together and putting them in.
Speaker:It has to be put in a good way that it makes you want to watch the video.
Speaker:And also with our team,
Speaker:we're very strict when it comes to like setting, like standards um so every
Speaker:week we will look at what's working on the ad account we'll say like okay
Speaker:guys like when we show visuals let's make sure they're clear make sure they're
Speaker:like simple um because with AI you can do the craziest stuff you can make
Speaker:things super complicated and super weird but oftentimes it's like stripping
Speaker:it back and making it simple um but yeah and also like think about it they're
Speaker:doing the process
Speaker:that a UGC creator would have to do to make the stuff as well as edit the
Speaker:stuff.
Speaker:That makes sense.
Speaker:Yeah, yeah, it does.
Speaker:How do you ensure that the output quality stays high?
Speaker:And like, how does the review process for you look like?
Speaker:Oh, good question.
Speaker:I love this one.
Speaker:So
Speaker:the classic process is like, you know, editor makes ads.
Speaker:We review it on a frame to do comments.
Speaker:We actually have our strategists review the ads that they scripted so that
Speaker:everything's coherent.
Speaker:And then what we do is once a week, we have a call with the strategists,
Speaker:the editors, myself.
Speaker:We go through the ad accounts with the clients and we basically look at,
Speaker:okay, why did this ad win?
Speaker:And it's a very painful process to get editors to explain their thinking
Speaker:and what they did, but it makes them very good at thinking critically
Speaker:and updating their thought patterns.
Speaker:Because sometimes they make things just out of autopilot.
Speaker:So what we found is that if we do a call, we show them, okay, ads that did
Speaker:this did very well, and the ads that did this didn't do very well, do more
Speaker:of this and less of that.
Speaker:And then after all of that's done, we create a document on Canva that basically
Speaker:shows you good stuff to do, bad stuff to do.
Speaker:And so it just means that an editor always has a way to reference whether
Speaker:what they're doing is good or not and then the difficult part is enforcing
Speaker:that behavior and forcing people to do that and it just comes with training
Speaker:and like we have a head of editing he's responsible for understanding the
Speaker:team very well so he might go you know you know editor one you're slacking
Speaker:a little bit on the AI UGC stuff what's going on like what's wrong with
Speaker:the process and they show you the process and they go, you know what, you
Speaker:haven't done this, this, this.
Speaker:Now they do it and now they're better.
Speaker:Does that make sense?
Speaker:Yeah. Yeah.
Speaker:And do you have like one editor focused entirely like on one style of ad
Speaker:or do they just work on a bunch of them?
Speaker:You know, it's interesting.
Speaker:We did do that.
Speaker:We did so many variations in our pods where we were like,
Speaker:okay, we have the AI UGC editor and we have the animations editor and we
Speaker:have the claymations editor.
Speaker:But I think ultimately you kind of want some editors to
Speaker:know enough about different formats but be a master of at least one
Speaker:or two right so we have some guys who are like excellent at the singing
Speaker:drama ads or excellent at the claymation ones we wouldn't want to give
Speaker:that to anybody else because the like the gap is too high but they could
Speaker:also do a good solid AIGC video
Speaker:and so when capacity is very tight or we need people to do stuff,
Speaker:we want to be able to lean on the whole team.
Speaker:Got it.
Speaker:Makes sense.
Speaker:And you mentioned, like, obviously in your process, it's really important
Speaker:for you to understand why certain ads worked and, like, why it did win.
Speaker:Like, with all the experience that you have and with all the millions in
Speaker:ad spend that you've overseen, would you say you're good at predicting whether
Speaker:an ad will do well or not before you launch it?
Speaker:I want to say that we are, but we've always been surprised.
Speaker:We're just being surprised less I think like we we
Speaker:are better at knowing whether we're on the right direction than before whereas
Speaker:before we were like like unsure whether this would even work um
Speaker:and I think just comes from our process is more dialed from start to finish
Speaker:whereas before it was like you know someone has an idea they execute it
Speaker:and they look at it did it work did or not now it's like the the ideator
Speaker:the script writer the strategist is feeding that to the editors so now they're
Speaker:getting better and better and I like seeing the patterns um I would say
Speaker:I can probably look at an ad and be like this doesn't work because xyz
Speaker:um but I have to look at the ads in the account because believe it or not
Speaker:some products for like that avatar that audience some things just will never
Speaker:work just because that audience doesn't resonate with it really well
Speaker:Or because it doesn't speak to them they don't speak to their language um
Speaker:we focus a lot on like using words that they people that they use using
Speaker:terms that they use um like we have we have one where it's like um um
Speaker:rather than saying like I feel bloated you say like there's like sludge
Speaker:inside you that makes you feel like you have things in you running through
Speaker:your veins that's more visceral and it's like that's how someone would describe
Speaker:it rather than just saying like I'm bloated like I'm bloated, anyone can
Speaker:say I'm bloated but if I can say that I feel like there's like sludge inside
Speaker:my veins right now that's gruesome, like what on earth is that, do you know
Speaker:what I mean?
Speaker:Do I get rid of that?
Speaker:And then you show the product yeah
Speaker:Yeah that makes sense yeah I think I think like reverse engineering ads
Speaker:and like having the feedback loop for you to be able to understand like
Speaker:why does something work why did not something work is super important.
Speaker:Thank you.
Speaker:But I also have to say that I think I'm still like, it's still impossible
Speaker:to predict what will really work and what will not work.
Speaker:And you can obviously improve that and you can increase your hit rate.
Speaker:And especially the longer you work on a specific like ad account, product,
Speaker:audience, like you'll be able to become better at it.
Speaker:But sometimes like everyone is still super surprised by an ad that suddenly
Speaker:crushes it.
Speaker:And another ad where everyone thought it will be like a really good ad and
Speaker:then it just tanks
Speaker:Yeah, 100%. 100%.
Speaker:Another thing that I wanted to to get your opinion on is like Meta is trying
Speaker:to flag more AI ads and like they first I think they introduced the thing
Speaker:where you can select yourself that you used AI in the ad and it will show
Speaker:it.
Speaker:Now they're starting to implement the automatic tagging that if they see
Speaker:in the metadata that you used AI, will tag it.
Speaker:Have you seen any impact of that on the performance?
Speaker:No no not really like we just like it just goes back to skill issue you
Speaker:know like if I if I walk into a cinema and there's blue people on the screen
Speaker:and I don't like blue people
Speaker:I'll leave the cinema but if I go into the cinema and I see blue people
Speaker:and it's like I was like there's like some some chaos and it's like some
Speaker:interesting thing happening like I'll watch it um people just get scared
Speaker:of this AI tag and I think it's because like we're at a stage where people
Speaker:are still
Speaker:like they still believe that
Speaker:they
Speaker:just because something says AI it's bad
Speaker:and they think that they are their customers they don't realize that like
Speaker:there's people that watch AI videos all the time like AI content all the
Speaker:time they just watch content all the time and actually people are like they
Speaker:want to see new things as well so if you can convey a message in a different
Speaker:way it's actually good um and also Meta is a AI company now pretty
Speaker:much like they you've seen what happens when you upload a static ad they
Speaker:create a whole bunch of different variations like they wouldn't have spent
Speaker:millions maybe billions on AI an algorithm to not use it and if you look
Speaker:at zuckerberg's vision he wants it so that you can just upload a product
Speaker:and all your ads are made for you they're not getting made with real people
Speaker:it'll be AI and so it hasn't really made an impact I think they've just
Speaker:done it as a
Speaker:box tick exercise because maybe the investors say so but I think people
Speaker:are wrong in believing that AI is a bad thing in the content
Speaker:because if it was really so bad if AI was the worst thing ever if people
Speaker:hate AI nobody will be watching the videos the ads wouldn't work like
Speaker:people do watch it and the ads do work and so maybe AI isn't the right thing
Speaker:for you right now because you haven't seen a good AI video but I don't think
Speaker:it's something that people should be afraid of it's just they haven't tried
Speaker:it for themselves
Speaker:or they're afraid of a couple of bad comments
Speaker:Yeah, yeah, true.
Speaker:You mentioned Meta's AI tools.
Speaker:Are you using any of those?
Speaker:No
Speaker:The only thing I've used before was Manus
Speaker:I'm just like clawed Max in right now have you?
Speaker:No no also also on Claude like some of the ads that Meta creates
Speaker:or proposes you to use are so outrageous and are so like unbelievably crazy
Speaker:like sometimes we just share them even with the client and just like for
Speaker:for the love loss um yeah they're crazy I mean it improved a lot like compared
Speaker:to even three months or six months ago it's like it's really good by now
Speaker:compared to that but some are still so so terrible
Speaker:Yeah sometimes you find some good things like there's some gems there but
Speaker:like not always I would say um have you um have
Speaker:you tried the like the Meta AI thing where like you can ask about the ad
Speaker:account on the ads manager or what do you think about it
Speaker:Not bad to be honest like sometimes it's it's a bit weird or sometimes you
Speaker:have to like go back and forth a bit, but it's not, it's not terrible.
Speaker:I thought it would be worse, but it's pretty good.
Speaker:Yeah.
Speaker:Yeah.
Speaker:Are there any brands or businesses that where you would say they should
Speaker:stay away from, from AI ads and not do, not do any.
Speaker:Would say if you're a business that's like afraid of brand,
Speaker:I would stay away from AI UGC, but I would try and do some kind of like
Speaker:animated style of AI videos.
Speaker:So imagine you, imagine like, like forget the term AI.
Speaker:Imagine you, you wanted like, like a, like a very cinematic, like a crazy
Speaker:CGI thing.
Speaker:Like it can happen now.
Speaker:You can make it happen.
Speaker:And like make it fun, like have like fun objects and have
Speaker:like caricatures or whatever.
Speaker:Like I would test that first.
Speaker:It's safer, it works but it's still a skill issue you still have to know
Speaker:how to make them, know how to script them you can't just slap an AI format
Speaker:onto a bad script and hope it's going to cook, it doesn't work like that
Speaker:As the last part of the of the podcast I want to do a round of rapid fire
Speaker:Oh yeah baby
Speaker:um so I'll give you give you a few bullet points and you have to say whether
Speaker:it's overrated or underrated
Speaker:Oh yes Oh, this is great.
Speaker:The shorts are going to be great.
Speaker:Perfect.
Speaker:Okay.
Speaker:Exactly.
Speaker:AI UGC that looks real.
Speaker:Overrated.
Speaker:Why?
Speaker:Because
Speaker:even if it looks really real, you still have to make an effort with the
Speaker:script.
Speaker:And we've had so many cases where if it doesn't look real, you can still
Speaker:make it work.
Speaker:Just make it funny if you can't make it real.
Speaker:Yeah.
Speaker:Claymation ads.
Speaker:Underrated right now they used to be overrated
Speaker:The hook rate.
Speaker:Think it's like appropriately rated
Speaker:Do you look at it?
Speaker:We look at it all the time yeah we look at it we aim for like 30 percent
Speaker:um
Speaker:we're just obsessed with the hook like even when we do learnings we don't
Speaker:even look at like we just look at the hook and we go okay why did this work
Speaker:and then we look at the rest of the video afterwards we're just so obsessed
Speaker:like the hook is the only guaranteed thing someone's going to see in an
Speaker:ad
Speaker:uh the body isn't so we do obsess over it but I think I think people know
Speaker:that the hook rate is important um I just think like if an ad isn't working
Speaker:maybe don't really work look at the hook because there's probably a lot
Speaker:of other stuff broken with it
Speaker:Yeah, exactly.
Speaker:I think the hook rate is important, but it also has to hook the right people in.
Speaker:I mean, that's kind of obvious, but we have some accounts where we have
Speaker:ads that have a crazy high hook rate, but it just captures entirely the
Speaker:wrong audience or just the most random people that are not interested in
Speaker:the product at all.
Speaker:And then it doesn't matter.
Speaker:Yeah so that's the thing but like I'm assuming that we've done our like
Speaker:good research for speaking to the right people and our hooks are appropriate
Speaker:if you're doing like random hooks for the sake of it obviously that's not
Speaker:a good I can like get naked and the hook will be crazy hopefully um
Speaker:For sure.
Speaker:but it's not gonna do anything
Speaker:Yeah.
Speaker:AI written scripts.
Speaker:Oh like way overrated like shouldn't even be rated I
Speaker:think
Speaker:Human UGC creators in 2027.
Speaker:They're underrated in a sense that
Speaker:People probably are not looking at them now
Speaker:but if you find a good creator
Speaker:like someone who's very good on camera maybe has a good personal brand and
Speaker:you do partnership ads with them and they do good content that's underrated
Speaker:I think if you just like want to get like a pay a rep like an average creator,
Speaker:a couple hundred bucks.
Speaker:I'm like, overrated.
Speaker:Yeah static ads
Speaker:Oh,
Speaker:bro.
Speaker:This is hard.
Speaker:Think it depends on the brand.
Speaker:It depends on so many things.
Speaker:I can't choose.
Speaker:I'm going to go
Speaker:Overrated.
Speaker:No, I'm going to go underrated.
Speaker:I'm going to go underrated.
Speaker:What's uh what's the format that you would never run no matter how well
Speaker:it converts
Speaker:A UGC doctor or veterinarian or fake professional
Speaker:Yeah there was there was this one brand in the UK that got sued uh because
Speaker:they had like on their on their landing page um like the
Speaker:what is it called like proven by whatever doctors and they had a bunch
Speaker:No
Speaker:of doctors and then at the bottom it was saying like all those people are
Speaker:AI generated
Speaker:even though they had like the board of doctors on the product page yeah
Speaker:That's terrible that's so bad
Speaker:Yeah
Speaker:what's your bet for 2027
Speaker:I bet agentic editing will be a thing I bet volume
Speaker:of content will be 10 times higher on the platforms I
Speaker:bet people will start looking at other platforms outside of Instagram and
Speaker:Facebook to advertise um uh
Speaker:AIGC will be indistinguishable it'll be so good um I
Speaker:bet all the AI platforms that exist will just go down to what's the cheapest
Speaker:and the most functional and the fastest
Speaker:and then probably some kind of market crash.
Speaker:Yeah, that could happen.
Speaker:Who knows?
Speaker:If a brand is doing 100k a month, has never run an AI ad,
Speaker:what is the first thing they should do Monday morning apart from joining
Speaker:your Skool community?
Speaker:Thanks, bro.
Speaker:That's pretty kind.
Speaker:They should look at the top five ads on their ad account.
Speaker:And
Speaker:create one
Speaker:AI animated style format
Speaker:based on whatever winning angle is from those five ones.
Speaker:And just run it and just see what happens.
Speaker:That's what I do.
Speaker:Where can people find you?
Speaker:Anywhere Ads with Cami, Instagram, YouTube.
Speaker:I'm very active on Twitter.
Speaker:I'm trying to be very active on Instagram.
Speaker:And yeah if you ever want to learn what we do
Speaker:in detail there's a Skool community but also share a lot of stuff for free
Speaker:on YouTube
Speaker:and I'm in London as well if anybody's in London reach out
Speaker:Nice, Camilo.
Speaker:Awesome, bro.
Speaker:Thank you very much.
Speaker:Likewise. It was a pleasure.
Speaker:Here's what to do Monday morning.
Speaker:Open your ad account and pull your top five ads.
Speaker:Find the winning angle.
Speaker:Make one AI animated ad from it and run it.
Speaker:Don't try to make it look real.
Speaker:Make it entertaining.
Speaker:Like Camilo said, if people call it out as AI, it just wasn't a good ad.
Speaker:He's Ads with Cami on YouTube and Instagram.
Speaker:His community is Ad Creators Lab on Skool.
Speaker:The links are in the description.
Speaker:If this was useful, follow the show and send this to whoever makes your ads,
Speaker:especially if they're still trying to fool people with AI.
Speaker:See you in the next one.
