Question · Creative & UGC
Should I reuse old ads that worked before?
Asked by a client whose ads were starting to fatigue · Answered by Nathan Frater ·
The short answer
Yes, but don't treat it as a substitute for new creative. Start seasonal campaigns from what worked last year, test old winners alongside what's running, and keep fresh content coming.
Before I build anything new for a seasonal campaign, I pull up what we ran at the same time last year. If a playbook drove your best months, start there. A proven playbook is the lowest-risk starting point you’ve got. If a bright, loud ad got you a good run of leads last year, run that style again instead of reinventing it because the team’s bored of it. Your team gets bored of creative long before your customers do.
Meta needs new content when something fatigues, so old ads won’t carry a campaign on their own. They’re still worth testing. Pull the exact ad ID of an old winner into your current campaign. It doesn’t always work, but sometimes they’ll perform 10 times better than what you’re running at the moment.
The cheapest bridge is re-editing new videos out of footage that’s already working. That can buy you another month while you plan a proper shoot.
Then layer in genuinely fresh assets. For us, founder face-to-camera video consistently beats polished content.