Pre-testing your ad creatives can be the difference between getting ignored and getting noticed. Learn how brands use attention data to pick top-performing visuals, improve engagement, and make smarter creative decisions — before spending a single dollar on media.
You’ve crafted a great ad. The copy’s tight, the visual’s striking, the message is on-brand. You hit publish... and then you wait.
The results come in, and they’re fine. Not amazing, not terrible, just, fine.
But here’s the thing: in a world flooded with ads, fine isn’t good enough. You don’t want your creative to blend in. You want it to perform, to stop people mid-scroll, spark curiosity, drive clicks, and fuel conversions.
So how do you make sure your creative hits before you spend your budget?
The answer is simple: test before you launch.
In this blog, we’ll walk through why pre-testing your ad creatives, using real audience insights, is one of the smartest ways to improve performance, save budget, and confidently choose the right version before going live.
Even the most talented creative teams make assumptions. It’s part of the process. You brainstorm, you build variants, you pick the one that “feels” strongest. Sometimes you test after launch with A/B performance data but by then, budget is already spent, time is gone, and your brand might’ve missed its moment.
The reality is that gut feeling can’t predict attention. What looks good to us as marketers doesn’t always connect with the audience. And in today’s fast-paced digital spaces, from Instagram stories to YouTube pre-rolls, you have seconds to make an impact.
If your ad doesn’t grab attention instantly, it’s skipped. And no clever message, no perfect targeting, no CTA magic can fix what was never seen.
Stopping Power is the single most important factor in ad engagement. It refers to the visual and emotional pull of an ad, the thing that makes someone pause, even for a second.
At Brandpulse, we quantify this with our Stopping Power Rating (SPR). It measures how well your creative grabs attention, based on real human interaction data. It's not about likes or shares. It's about initial visual capture, the moment that determines whether your ad gets noticed at all.
When you pre-test creatives with Brandpulse, each version gets an SPR score, so you can see which one is most likely to stop the scroll.
That’s not just useful — it’s transformative.
Stopping Power is the visual and emotional pull of an ad that causes someone to pause and take notice. Brandpulse quantifies this with a Stopping Power Rating (SPR), based on real human attention data — not opinions or engagement metrics.
Let’s say your team has developed three ad versions for a campaign. Different visuals, maybe slightly different messaging, or even just alternate thumbnails. Internally, opinions are mixed. Everyone has a favorite.
Instead of guessing, you upload all three to Brandpulse and run a quick test.
Real people from your target group are shown your ads in realistic feed environments. Their visual behavior is tracked, and you quickly receive insights. Each ad is scored based on how quickly and strongly it grabs attention.
Now, instead of hoping your team picked the right version, you know which creative is most likely to perform, before it ever runs.
Engagement doesn’t start at the click. It starts at the first glance.
If your ad earns attention, it has a chance to inform, persuade, and convert. If it doesn’t, you’ve lost before you began.
By using pre-tested creatives, you:
And just as importantly: you stop wasting budget on guesswork.
Ads that fail to capture attention in the first second are often skipped entirely, regardless of how strong the message or CTA may be. Pre-testing helps ensure your creative actually gets seen.
With Brandpulse, you can test a wide range of static ad creatives — perfect for formats where attention is won or lost in a split-second glance. That includes:
If your ad relies on a strong visual to stop the scroll or spark interest, it’s worth testing. Your static assets, especially thumbnails and social visuals, are often the deciding factor in whether users pay attention at all.
We’ve worked with agencies and in-house teams across industries — e-commerce, FMCG, beauty, tech — and we see a consistent pattern: the winning creatives aren’t always the prettiest.
Sometimes it’s the layout that breaks the grid.
Sometimes it’s a bold color or unexpected photo.
Sometimes it’s a line of copy that creates curiosity.
The data lets you separate what performs from what just looks polished.
One media team told us, “We used to rely on A/B testing in-platform, but with Brandpulse, we started knowing what to bet on. It’s faster and we’re seeing real improvements in engagement.”
In today’s attention economy, great creative isn’t optional. It’s your competitive edge. And pre-testing is how you sharpen it.
Whether you’re launching a paid campaign, preparing a pitch, or refreshing your always-on creative, stop waiting until after launch to find out what works. Use pre-testing to make confident, data-backed decisions — and unlock the full potential of your ads.
Because when you start with what gets seen, you give your message the chance to matter.
Ready to boost your ad engagement with pre-tested creative?
Start your Brandpulse test today and discover what actually earns attention — before you hit publish.
“Engagement doesn’t start at the click. It starts at the first glance.”
Join thousands of brands using BrandPulse to create high-performing content through the perfect blend of AI and human insights.
We provide clear insights into which image asset has the greatest stopping power
We provide clear insights into which image asset has the greatest stopping power
Start Now
We provide clear insights into which image asset has the greatest stopping power
We provide clear insights into which image asset has the greatest stopping power
Start Now
Arno is the founder of Brandpulse, where he’s on a mission to help creative teams make smarter decisions with real human insight. With a background in marketing and a sharp eye for what makes brands stand out, he created Brandpulse to close the gap between great ideas and actual audience attention. Arno believes that when creatives see how people really respond, they unlock their most impactful work.
