Draft Five Ad Hypotheses Before You Spend Anything

An ad is a hypothesis about which sentence will earn a click from a specific person, and about whether the page behind it keeps the same promise. Five careful drafts make your hypotheses easier to compare than a pile of lines that could point anywhere. Write them before you create a campaign. Spending money, opening an ads account, and publishing a creative all wait for your explicit yes.

Public libraries are the place to study structure. Meta’s Ad Library and Google’s Ads Transparency Center show creatives advertisers have made public. Read them for the kind of claim and the kind of offer. Rewrite from your own page. A long-running ad is a clue about what that advertiser kept up, not a result you can claim for your product.

Five drafts, one destination

Pick one sentence the landing page already supports. Every draft repeats that promise in different clothes, and every draft uses the same destination URL and the same action. If the page does not say it, the ad does not get to say it.

1. **Situation.** Name the moment the reader already recognizes, then offer the page’s action.
2. **Outcome.** Say what is different after they use the product, in a concrete noun the page also uses.
3. **Hesitation.** Answer one objection the page answers, and stop there.
4. **Reader.** Say who it is for, using the audience the page names. If the page names nobody, this draft stays in the drawer until the page does.
5. **Mechanism.** One plain sentence on how it works, plus the action. Skip slogans that the product screen does not illustrate.

Each draft needs a short primary line, one or two supporting sentences, and a call to action that matches the button on the page. “Learn more” is a weak stand-in when the page says “Get the checklist.” No formula here guarantees a conversion. The drafts are material for a later test you choose to run.

Running those drafts through an agent is a separate, optional step. How to launch ads through an agent covers that path. An agent connection is not an ads account, and a draft file is not a live campaign.

Harbor, on paper

Harbor, the fictional freelancer status page from a planning exercise, has this public promise: “Your client sees what is waiting on them, without another status meeting.” The button says “Send a client link.” The page shows a real screenshot of a client view and says the client does not need an account. It does not claim faster payments, because the product does not do that.

• **Situation:** “Another ‘just checking in’ email. Send a client link instead.” Button: “Send a client link.”
• **Outcome:** “Your client sees the file, the question, and the due date in one place.” Button: “Send a client link.”
• **Hesitation:** “Clients can open the link without creating an account.” Button: “Send a client link.”
• **Reader:** “For freelancers who already write the update and still end up in a meeting.” Button: “Send a client link.”
• **Mechanism:** “Paste the work into Harbor. Your client gets one page, not a thread.” Button: “Send a client link.”

A sixth line about getting paid in two days would be a different product. It stays out. The visual for all five is the same client-view screenshot, so a later test would be about the words. Landing page best practices are the check on that destination: the ad’s noun should appear on the page the click opens.

Write them in this order

1. Paste the landing-page headline, the button label, and the URL at the top of a doc.
2. Underline the nouns you are allowed to use. Strike claims the page does not make.
3. Draft the five patterns above. Each one links to that same URL.
4. Read each draft next to the screenshot you would actually run. If the picture does not show the claim, change the sentence.
5. Stop. Title the doc “Drafts, not approved.” Creating the campaign, setting a budget, and turning anything on are a later decision.

Prompt

Product promise, copied from the live page: [paste]. Destination URL: [url]. Button label: [label]. Write exactly five ad drafts: situation, outcome, hesitation, reader, and mechanism. Each draft has a primary line, at most two supporting sentences, and the same call to action as the button. Use only claims present in the pasted promise and on the destination. Mark any missing proof instead of inventing it. Do not predict performance, recommend a budget, or create a campaign. Label the output DRAFT — do not spend or publish.

When to stop

You are done when five drafts sit in one document, each with the same URL and the same action, and a note under each draft quotes the on-page sentence it depends on. Nothing is in an ads manager yet. If you are unsure the destination can carry the promise, run that URL through the free scan first and read the gap it names. Fix the page or narrow the claim before you approve any spend.