Every public note we keep about ad creative.
Four hubs, thirty-plus long-form pieces, nine scored case studies, three methodology pages, eleven free tools. All grounded in the same RoastIQ pipeline. Vertex AI Gemini + public transparency data, no mock-ups, no anonymised numbers.
Pick the angle, not the answer.
Industry research is wide reads across categories. Research insights is the methodology that defends them. Creative analysis is the field guide and per-pattern teardowns. Case studies are nine scored ads, on the record.
Industry research
Practical editorial guides for reviewing openings, brand cues, sound-off clarity, creative format, language and skincare. These are review frameworks, not published study results.
Open the hub →Research insights
The methodology pieces. How the benchmark is constructed and defended. Why we use official public APIs instead of scraping. The LLM-as-judge inter-rater reliability work.
Open the hub →Creative analysis
The Field Guide and per-pattern teardowns. First two seconds, brand cue placement, hook-rate vs thumbstop, score interpretation, synthetic-vs-live tests. The long-form behind every verdict.
Open the hub →Case studies
Nine real ads from CeraVe, L'Oréal Paris, Coca-Cola, BMW, Booking.com, Nivea, Nike, Netflix, pulled from public transparency APIs, scored through RoastIQ, every verdict on the record with evidence frames.
Open the hub →"Every score on this site has a trace. If you can't reproduce the verdict from the public ad + the methodology page, we re-did it wrong."
Industry research
Hub home →TikTok opening review
Locate the promise, brand and next action. Turn observations into a testable edit.
Brand cue timing
Record when the product and brand become understandable, without claiming measured recognition.
Sound-off creative review
Compare the offer, captions and brand with sound on and off.
UGC and studio
Compare production choices against the same brief; test the proposed benefit.
Skincare brand cues
Separate useful category cues from the assets that identify your brand.
MENA creative review
Review language and context with the intended audience and qualified local reviewers.
Research insights
Hub home →Benchmark Credibility
500 ads × 43 attributes = 21,500 data points. How the SaliencyLab benchmark is constructed, sourced, and defended against volume-based competitors.
Data Sourcing Defense
We don't scrape. We use official public transparency tools (Meta Ad Library, TikTok Creative Center, Google Ads Transparency). How to prove it and defend against challenges.
LLM-as-Judge IRR
Evaluation protocol for model attribute labels and independent human annotations. Completed study results and publication status are not established.
Creative analysis
Hub home →The Field Guide
A practical workflow for creative diagnostics, evidence limits, human decisions and measured outcomes.
First Two Seconds
A practical opening review: inspect the visible evidence and turn it into a testable edit.
Brand Cue Placement
The single best predictor of Brand Impact in our 2,000+ sample is not how often the logo appears, it's when the first distinctive asset hits the frame. The curve, the audit, and category exceptions.
Hook Rate vs Thumbstop
Record the metric definition, denominator and viewing threshold before comparing campaigns. Creative timing is not viewer retention.
Reading a Verdict
An illustrative guide to diagnostic scores, directional verdicts and the evidence behind a human decision.
Synthetic vs Live Test
What a 6–12-persona simulation can explore, and when you need a real audience. The decision tree, the Kantar comparison, and the honest limits of LLM-based personas.
What "Benchmarked" Means
Review cohort scope, source provenance and sample limits before interpreting a diagnostic score. Validation and repeated-run stability remain separate.
Case studies
Hub home →CeraVe
Educational-POV TikTok cut. Brand cue lands after second 3, Brand Impact drops to the rule's lower edge.
L'Oréal Paris
The diagnosis behind a beauty brand's mid-band scoring. KPI breakdown + evidence frames + recommended edits.
Coca-Cola
Meta-Feed creative scored through RoastIQ. Composite, verdict, KPI breakdown, evidence frames and recommended edits.
BMW
BMW YouTube creative scored through RoastIQ. Composite, verdict, KPI breakdown, evidence frames and recommended edits.
Booking.com
Booking.com YouTube creative scored through RoastIQ. Composite, verdict, KPI breakdown, evidence frames and recommended edits.
Nivea
What a mid-band beauty cut looks like in the decision trace. Composite, KPI breakdown, evidence frames.
BMW
BMW Meta-Feed creative scored through RoastIQ. Composite, verdict, KPI breakdown, evidence frames and recommended edits.
Nike
Nike YouTube creative scored through RoastIQ. Composite, verdict, KPI breakdown, evidence frames and recommended edits.
Netflix
Netflix Meta-Feed creative scored through RoastIQ. Composite, verdict, KPI breakdown, evidence frames and recommended edits.
Methodology, then the tools.
The methodology pages are the most-cited surface on the site, read them before any RoastIQ score. The product surfaces below are the live tools.
How SaliencyLab scores.
5 KPIs (Beat the Skip, Get Noticed, Brand Impact, Sell Proposition, Build Brand), the decision ladder (Scale · Sharpen · Rebuild), the benchmark cohort and the held-out validation.
Read the overview →RoastIQ scoring.
The Vertex AI Gemini multimodal pipeline. KPI weights, composite math, model versioning, confidence labels and how the decision trace persists.
Read the deep-dive →BuyerLens synthetic users.
The persona library, the 6–12-persona study format, what synthetic panels can and cannot tell you, and the audit trail behind every interview.
Read the deep-dive →Eleven calculators, zero login.
Small focused tools we use ourselves when scoring. Each one solves a single ad-craft question, no signup, no email gate.
Hook Timer
Mark the precise frame your hook lands. Compare against the 2-second decision rule.
Ad Length Helper
Per-platform duration sweet spots and the trade-off curves we've seen in the benchmark.
Ad Specs Lookup
Current platform spec sheet for Meta, TikTok and YouTube, pulled from official docs and kept in sync.
Benchmark Library
Browse the public-API benchmark cohort. Filter by platform, category, region, score band.
Brief Builder
Structured brief template, keeps brand asset, single-message, distinctive cue at the front.
Brand Color Audit
Drop a swatch in, get the contrast scores, distinctive-asset framing, and the category-default compare.
Compressor
Browser-side video compress for upload-size limits. No file leaves your machine.
Copy Check
The single-message, one-CTA, claim-honesty audit we run on every script before greenlight.
Fatigue Window
When to refresh. The frequency curve and the early-warning signals from the public outcome cohort.
Aspect Resize
9:16 / 1:1 / 16:9 re-frame helper. Keeps the brand cue inside the safe zone on every cut.
Thumbnail Audit
The thumb-stop heuristic + a Brand Impact preview applied to YouTube and Meta still frames.