Crowdfunding campaigns rise or fall on the strength of their ads, and the most effective teams know how to bring data awareness and creative decision making together in the right way. It sounds simple on paper, but anyone who has run ads knows how many small choices sit underneath that balance and how quickly results can shift.

Few people know that balance better than Norayr. He joined TCF in 2020, and 6 years of hands-on work in digital advertising have shaped a sharp, practical approach to performance, testing, and creative strategy across multiple industries. At TCF, he works across Meta, Google, and TikTok, managing campaigns and turning data into clear decisions about what to make, what to test, and what to cut.

We sat down to talk about how he reads signals, how he decides which creatives deserve the budget, and how the smallest adjustment can sometimes change the entire outcome of a campaign.

Jasmine: When planning ads for a new crowdfunding campaign, what comes first, the data or the creative?

Norayr: When a new project comes in, we always start by understanding the product and the category it belongs to. If we’ve run campaigns in that category before, we already know what patterns worked, what targeting made sense, and what types of creatives actually generated purchases. That historical data becomes my starting point.

For me, data comes first. We look at what performed well and what didn’t, then build new creatives based on those insights. After that, testing takes over. If the new creatives don’t deliver, we fall back on what past results have proven. It’s a loop: we study the category, test fresh ideas, compare them to previous winners, and refine from there.

Jasmine: How do you define a “strong” creative in crowdfunding?

Norayr: A strong creative is one that drives purchases. That sounds obvious, but in crowdfunding everything comes down to whether people click, land on the page, and buy. Design doesn’t guarantee performance. Metrics do.

If we test 20 creatives and only 2 or 3 bring in most of the purchases, those are the strong ones. They might not be the “prettiest” or the most polished, but something about them makes people act. That’s what matters. Crowdfunding audiences respond to clarity, relatability, and emotional triggers more than perfect aesthetics. A creative only earns the “strong” label if it proves itself in the numbers.

Jasmine: What metrics matter most when evaluating creative performance of crowdfunding ads?

Norayr: Purchases always come first. This metric shows the creative carried people through the full journey and delivered a result that moves the campaign forward.

Cost per purchase follows right after. We track how much we pay for each sale, since a creative can drive purchases and still fail if the cost climbs beyond what the project can support. Healthy cost per purchase keeps the budget stable and gives the campaign room to grow without pressure.

Revenue is the next layer. It tells us the financial value of the sales that came through that creative. ROAS adds another level of clarity, since it measures how much the campaign earns for every dollar spent. These two metrics give a complete view of the creative’s real impact and show how aggressively we can scale it.

After that, we look at CTR. It’s the percentage of people who clicked on the ad out of everyone who saw it. So if 100 people see the ad and 5 click, the CTR is 5%. It tells us how eye-catching or interesting the creative is. A strong CTR usually means the creative did a good job grabbing attention.

But CTR alone doesn’t decide anything. We’ve had creatives with very high CTR that still didn’t bring purchases. In those cases, the creative isn’t the problem, because it did its job by getting people to the page. The issue is usually on the landing page or somewhere else in the funnel.

CTR supports the story once the core metrics show the full picture.

Jasmine: How do you prioritize creative ideas for crowdfunding ads when you have a large pool of concepts?

Norayr: The great thing now is that we can test almost everything. Meta used to recommend 6 to 8 creatives per ad set. Today, especially with Advantage Plus, the system performs better when we give it more variety.

We can put 20 creatives into 1 ad set and let the algorithm decide. The key is diversity. If all 20 creatives are similar, the system doesn’t learn anything useful. But if they differ in angle, topic, message, format, or emotional approach, Meta’s AI gets more signals to work with. The more variety we give it, the better the results tend to be.

We don’t eliminate ideas early unless they’re clearly redundant. Creative diversity is a huge advantage in 2025.

Jasmine: How do you know when a crowdfunding ad creative has peaked and needs to be replaced?

Norayr: We watch where Meta starts allocating the budget. When the algorithm sees a strong creative, it naturally pushes more spend toward it. That’s the first sign that a creative is performing.

If a creative barely receives budget, it’s usually because the system doesn’t see potential there. Those get cut. But there are cases where I keep a creative even if it doesn’t generate purchases directly. People might see Creative A, ignore it, and then convert after seeing Creative B. Creative A still played a role by priming the user, even though it doesn’t show in purchase results.

Eventually top performers start to fatigue. When costs climb and conversion rate drops, that’s when we replace them. My goal is to refresh creatives before fatigue becomes expensive.

Jasmine: How do you balance data with instinct when evaluating crowdfunding ad creatives?

Norayr: Data leads, instinct follows. If we have historical data for the category, we always rely on it first. It helps me avoid wasting time on ideas that look good but won’t perform.

Instinct still plays a role, especially when I’m choosing which new angles to test. But intuition never overrides data. A visual can look beautiful and still fail because it doesn’t create desire or urgency. The numbers decide whether a creative stays or goes.

Jasmine: How do audience comments or reactions factor into your creative decisions for crowdfunding ads?

Norayr: Most comments are about the product itself, not the ads, so we don’t use them to judge creative performance. But sometimes people ask questions we didn’t expect. When that happens, we update the messaging or build a new creative that answers those questions.

At one point, we even experimented with Q&A-style ads, where the creative addressed user questions directly. It worked well for products with lots of clarifications or confusion around features.

Jasmine: Have you ever seen a small creative tweak impact the results of a crowdfunding ad?

Norayr: Definitely. One example I always remember is a visual that was performing okay but not standing out. It wasn’t our worst creative, but it wasn’t one of the winners either. We took the same visual and added a short quote from an article on top of it. That tiny change suddenly pushed it into the top-performing group for the entire project.

I’ve seen that happen a lot. The difference between an average creative and a winning one can come down to a few words, a clearer angle, or a value cue that lands better with the audience. That’s why testing volume matters so much. You never know which small adjustment will unlock a completely different result.

Jasmine: Does relying on historical data limit creativity in crowdfunding ad strategy?

Norayr: Not at all. If anything, it helps to start faster. When we launch in a category we already know, we use past data to build the foundation. It saves time and reduces early-stage mistakes.

But we don’t stop there. During the campaign, we introduce new angles and new creatives. The data gives us the starting direction, and experimentation takes over from there.

Before launching, we always create a CSM (Creative Strategy Map.) It lays out all the angles we want to test. Historical data shapes the beginning, but the real growth comes from testing variations on top of it.

Jasmine: What advice would you give teams creating visuals for crowdfunding campaigns?

Norayr: Create as many diverse visuals as you can. Meta’s AI performs better when you give it a high volume of options. The system literally tells you not to limit your creative count.

Change themes, colors, angles, messaging styles. The more contrast you give the algorithm, the smarter it gets about finding the right audience.

And always rely on data. The more data you have, the more confident you can be in your decisions. Creativity matters, but data is what turns creativity into performance.

Conclusion

Talking with Norayr shows how much of crowdfunding advertising comes down to steady, focused work. He approaches campaigns with a mix of structure and flexibility, letting the numbers guide him while staying open to whatever the next test reveals. Nothing is left to theory. Everything is built on what people actually respond to.

The takeaway is straightforward: strong ads come from paying attention, adjusting quickly, and knowing which signals matter. And in a space where momentum shifts fast, that mindset is what keeps campaigns moving in the right direction.

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