Inspired by the Lotus Esprit from the James Bond movie The Spy Who Loved Me, the sQuba was an electric vehicle that could be driven both on land and underwater. And, oddly, it was also a convertible. So to drive it you had to be wearing scuba gear.

The prototype cost more than $1.5 million.

This is what you call a ‘concept car’

I’ve always loved concept cars.

My favourite memory being a teenager was when my dad surprised me with a trip to the 2002 British Motor Show at the NEC in Birmingham. He picked me up in a bright yellow VW Camper he’d hired (I was OBSESSED with VW campers as a teen), and we hit the road for the weekend.

And my favourite thing at the motor show was the Lexus 2054 concept car. It had been designed for the movie Minority Report, so it looked insane. I remember looking at it and thinking it was the best thing I’d ever seen.

But even 15 year-old me knew this was a concept car. A proof of concept. It was obvious I’d never see it on the roads. And when the Rinspeed sQuba was announced, I knew I was never going to see it coasting down the local canal.

Yet, for some reason, people watched the demo last week of the ‘flying’ Tesla Roadster, and genuinely seem to believe they’ll be hitting the highways at any point.

Note: In that last paragraph, I put apostrophes around the word ‘flying’. I did this because it clearly didn’t fly. I think the most accurate description, to borrow a phrase from Buzz Lightyear, is “falling with style”. If a plane had to drive up a ramp only to glide back to the runway, you wouldn’t call it flying. So let’s all calm down.

It wasn’t flying, but it was cool AF

Now, I hate Elon Musk as much as the next informed person (unless the next informed person is my wife — she’s just better at hating than I am), but even I’ll admit that the Roadster demo was sick. Tesla demos have come a long way since Elon broke the Cybertruck window by limply lobbing a rock at it.

As a child I had a recurring nightmare where I would cycle up a very similar ramp to the one used in the demo. But instead of a cool steam-engulfed spin, I’d just plummet to my presumptive demise. So there’s actually something personally reassuring about the Roadster demonstration.

(Sorry to keep revisiting my childhood — I don’t have currently have a therapist)

But as reassuring as it is…what are the real world applications here? I’ve been known to drive too fast over the odd speed bump, but it would be overkill to explode into a cloud of steam and glide the two inches I left the ground.

The other demo Tesla showed was the Roadster jumping (not flying) over a truck. Which has made some folks on social media fantasise about jumping over traffic. Which would be wildly dangerous, unless you knew it was clear in front of the truck you were jumping. And if it was clear, the truck would just drive forwards anyway.

None of this matters

The truth is that there are no real world applications. And that’s fine because it’ll never be on the roads (or in the skies).

It was an advert for Tesla and Elon Musk. And a very good one!

But it’s still a concept car. You just need to look at the underside of the car in the demonstration. That’s clearly not a production chassis. It looks more like a stunt chassis…because that’s what it is.

I’d love to see what the inside of that car looks like. I’d wager it’s full of roll cage, gas bottles, and enough padding to protect an egg from a double decker bus.

Which is also why Tesla haven’t revealed a price for the flying ‘Rocket’ variant (it’s hard to put a price tag on a fictional car) and have said that buying one is ‘Invite-only’. Which basically translates to “We will produce a handful of these concepts to be used for demonstration purposes only, under very strict conditions”.

But if you really liked the demo of the flying car, you can still put down your deposit for one of the non-flying versions. The ‘Performance’ variant (just a standard electric car) requires a $50,000 deposit. And the ‘Thrust’ variant (can’t fly, but has a gas thruster at the back) just requires a $250,000 deposit. Oh, and they won’t tell you how much the final versions will actually cost.

They want people to order a car based on a feature they won’t get for a price they don’t know. And the dumb thing is that this will work. There will be plenty of people who will have just dropped $50k or even $250k off the back of this science fiction ad.

Personally, I’d rather drive underwater with the top down.

ALSO:

This article is a bit of a departure from my usual ad teardown format. If you like it, let me know. I’ll still be doing the regular teardowns, but I want to mix it up a bit so it’s not just the same thing every day.

The Hook

If I was reviewing this hook five years ago, I would have said it was good. Maybe the biggest improvement would have been more specific quantification. “Create pitch decks on your Mac in under five minutes” maybe.

But in 2026, this hook is…meh.

Create a pitch deck in minutes? Sure. Let me just open ChatGPT, Canva, Claude, Figma, etc. Easy.

This just isn’t a hook any more. If your whole USP is the speed, you’re not going to do very well. The hook needs to address a problem that actually resonates with your reader.

Having a quick look at their page on Setapp (who are promoting the app), they seem to be a competitor to Canva’s AI slide generator feature. So they should be finding something that pisses people off about that feature.

As a Canva user, I find that it’s very much a jack of all trades, master of none. It’s easy to create something, but the something is rarely as good as I want it to be. Maybe a skill issue, but I’m sure others will share this.

You tend to find yourself bogged down with templates, and then spending time adapting the templates. So this could be a good way to hook them in.

The other side to that coin is a chatbot like ChatGPT or Claude. But the problem with those is that you can only edit with prompts, which gets annoying. Especially when you just want to drag something a few pixels.

So the hook there would be finding a way to say something like “Generate an editable deck in seconds”. Obviously that’s a bit clumsy and if this was for a client I’d mull this over for a few hours. But you get the point.

The Angle

Again, the intro text just doesn’t tell me how it’s different from ChatGPT, Claude, Gemini, etc. The focus is on generating the first deck, when that’s nothing new.

Most people who would find this appealing already have access to tools which can do this. There’s no differentiator here.

And the last sentence “Try for free on Setapp” also brings up a new problem I’ll get onto in the next section.

The Ask

I know what Setapp is. I even have a subscription. But if I didn’t, I wouldn’t know what the fuck was going on.

The image only mentions KeyComposer, the ad itself is attributed to ‘Setapp by MacPaw’, the intro text mentions KeyComposer then Setapp, then this CTA is just about Setapp.

The ad makes the assumption that you know Setapp is a multi-app subscription service. But most people won’t. Which means that even if someone knows they want a tool like this, they’re given pause to click the CTA because they don’t know what they’re signing up for.

This ad needs to do two things:

1. Tell you why you should want KeyComposer

2. Make it clear that it’s only available via the multi-app subscription

You can do this explicitly in the intro. But you can also include “Only available on Setapp” on the image to set the context early. Making it clear that KeyComposer is the subject of the ad, and Setapp is the way you get it.

This CTA is just nuts. It has the Setapp domain, then a summary of KeyComposer, then repeats “Try Free on Setapp” from the intro.

I talk a lot about removing friction from these funnels, and this whole confusion is just a lot of unnecessary friction.

The Landing

With that said, the landing page is the right destination. It’s a landing page for KeyComposer, with screenshots, an overview, etc.

It also includes the quite unfavourable 61% rating, which won’t help anything.

But by and large, this is the place to be. It’s clearly a page about KeyComposer, but it’s hosted on the Setapp site. And clicking “Get for free” takes you to another page that focuses on KeyComposer:

This does what it needs to do.

The Verdict

This funnel has two key problems. The first is that they need to find a proper differentiator to shout about. Generating slides in minutes isn’t a boast anymore.

The second is the muddies water as to whether this is an ad for KeyComposer or Setapp.

It’s not an awful ad, but it also doesn’t have much going for it.

I’m doing something a bit different today. Instead of tearing down an ad funnel, I’m looking at a case study. Partly for a bit of variety, but mostly because I saw this case study and wanted a wee rant.

The Hook

This is what caught my eye…in a bad way. If you didn’t know, I own bestcasestud.io, so I know a thing or two about good case studies. And rule one is to have a headline that actually says something.

“at the forefront” is the definition of a nothingy headline. What does ‘forefront’ mean in this context? It’s a meaningless marketing headline that does nothing but massage an ego.

Also, ‘with HubSpot’ irritates me here. How does something emerge with HubSpot? It’s just passive, lazy nothingness.

“As of October 2026, HubSpot (NYSE: HUBS) has a market capitalization of approximately $11.34 billion.”

I just wanted to remind you how much HubSpot was worth, while pointing out that they just pasted the same generic paragraph into the ‘Story Overview’ and ‘About Company’ sections.

These sections are supposed to give you quick context at a glance. You see the kind of company they helped, and a short summary of how they helped them. These sections are also used by search engines and LLMs to understand who they should show this page to.

I have no idea how this gets missed at a company this big, but it was…and it’s not a good look.

Now, something I do like. The numbers for website traffic, revenue increased, and customer satisfaction are all great numbers to shout about. And if the reader only reads this, it’s a very good section.

The Angle

You’d think I’d know what the angle was already from the heading, stats, and story overview, but I don’t. Let’s see if the main body digs into it.

OK, so a few things to unpack here:

The first is that it’s quite disconcerting how uniformly each paragraph is formatted. From reading, I don’t think it’s AI. But it’s very odd for a human writer to write like this.

But narratively it’s quite strong. It starts at the problem, then systematically breaks down the different ways HubSpot helped them. It has the bones of a decent case study.

The problem is that this doesn’t feel like social proof. There are no quotes, videos, names, pictures of real people, etc. It just feels devoid of any real humanity. This isn’t a case study from the perspective of the customer, it’s just “Here are the stats we pulled out of our software".

It’s technically a case study, but not a compelling one. As a reader, I want to know what the customer thought, in their own words. Instead, I just get a corporate summary of how they worked with a client.

It also doesn’t directly address the stats it mentioned. It gives some specific stats at the top, then does nothing to put them into context. What were the timelines? What was the customer percentage before? These things that build credibility.

Just a short case study video at the top would go a long way to making this feel more like a proper case study, rather than a placeholder.

The Ask

Nothing much to criticise or praise with this CTA. It’s pretty generic, but is consistent enough with the narrative of the case study.

The Landing

The landing page is also largely fine. But what’s going on with that form on the right? A massive white box with one field? So much blank space to the point I worried I’d fallen for a phishing scam.

The Verdict

Case studies are all about building trust and saying “Hey, this customer is like you, and we helped them.”. But this case study doesn’t do that. It feels like an unfinished case study, and not just because some bits are literally unfinished.

A video, some quotes, and a meaningful headline would transform this case study. But, for now, it’s just a missed opportunity.

Note: I can’t take credit for finding this ad. It was shared on LinkedIn by , and I couldn’t resist.

The Hook

Because I’m a diplomatic fella, I’ll start things off by saying the handshakes are a decent visual hook. There’s something more human and simple vs most ad designs.

And if they were for a B2C app for making friends or getting support for something, they’d be pretty good.

But Attio is a CRM. An ‘Agentic CRM’. They’re literally describing themselves in the least human way, just below these images.

And then there’s the heading “Sales is changing. This feeling isn’t.”. What the fuck does this even mean? Is the idea that these handshakes are people making deals? Is the handshake supposed to represent the feeling you get when you make the sale? Or is it supposed to represent the human interaction?

I've only ever worked in sales for two weeks (turns out I’m awful at selling advertising space to hotels in Bournemouth for a free Nottingham-based newspaper), so if any salespeople are reading his, let me know what “this feeling” is.

The Angle

The body copy doesn’t really clear anything up, either. “Sales was always a people job” makes me think the image is about the personal connection, but “this feeling” is then even more of a mystery.

Then “The software turned it into a data entry job” starts to establish an actual angle. That other CRMs have turned sales into a data entry job. I assume they mean Salesforce, because they always are.

Not a terrible angle, in isolation. The problem is that the image hints at it, the heading says something else, then they follow this with “Attio is the agentic CRM that turns it back on.”.

Surely they must realise ‘agentic’ screams anything but human? I understand positioning yourself as “The agentic CRM” in 2026. I’m sure their investors love it. But if you’re doing that, why would you possibly try to sell your software off a human angle?

Either you’re doubling down on AI or you’re focusing on the real relationships. Trying to do both is like trying to market a vegan sausage made from the best quality meat.

The Ask

The ‘ask’ is less of an ask and more just repeating ‘The agentic CRM’ for the third time…in an ad about the importance of people.

The Landing

This ad links to…their regular homepage. Where the entire message is essentially “THE AGENTS DO IT ALL FOR YOU. NO HUMANS NEEDED!”

There is zero mention of sales being a people job, about ‘this feeling’, or anything remotely similar to the angle they try to hit in this ad.

The Verdict

I have no idea who this ad is for. It feels entirely at odds with their general positioning and messaging, and drops the angle before you even finish reading.

What’s the point?

The Hook

I do have a soft spot for quotes as hooks. Which shouldn’t be a surprise considering I run a case study business. And this is a good’un!

“Slack canvases are the ultimate time-saver” is just bang on for a quote headline. It names the product, it names the feature, and it names a huge benefit. They struck gold with this quote.

I’ve been a Slack user (often reluctantly) since the early days. Back when it was the supposed ‘email killer’. So it takes a lot for me to feel any enthusiasm about the product. If anything, it’s more of a distraction than email ever was, and most Slack workspaces are in shambles.

BUT this hook legitimately made me raise an eyebrow. I’ve not used canvases, but this made me want to know more.

The Angle

Once you’ve hooked a reader, you need to follow it up with an angle that pulls them along for the ride.

When you’ve created a curiosity gap as good as “Slack canvases are the ultimate time-saver”, you need to then answer the big question on the readers mind. Which, for me at least, is “what the fuck is a canvas”?

But I don’t get an answer.

“Instant info is the best info” just raises more questions. From the name, I assumed a canvas would be some sort of interactive document. But it’s about getting information instantly?

Then it just retreads the hooks ground with “Wolf & Badger uses canvases to get time back and focus on their customers.”

If you’re going to dangle a feature in front of the reader, at least tell them what it is!

The Ask

I’m officially confused. Do canvases automate tasks and organise projects??

WHAT THE FUCK IS A CANVAS?

This ad is infuriating. It’s like a friend telling you they’ve got some gossip, then talking about the weather instead. I don’t give a shit about the weather, Sheila, just tell me the gossip!!!

Then the button is “Sign Up”. Why would I sign up when you haven’t even explained what the new (presumably?) feature does?

The Landing

And predictably the ‘Sign Up’ button just takes me to a generic landing page. A landing page that doesn’t mention canvases a single time.

Who is this ad for? Someone who knows Slack, knows what a canvas is, but just needed a bit of social proof to be convinced? That’s not a real person.

Surely the whole point of this ad should have been “Hey, check out this feature you didn’t know about. It works like this and people love it”

Instead, it gives up after the hook.

The Verdict

Great hook let down by everything else. Aida set them up for a slam dunk and they spaffed it into the rafters.

The Hook

I really like a simple hook. And “Stop Paying Per User” is definitely a simple hook.

What I like about it is that it’s pinpoint on the pain point it’s targeting. For scaling companies, per-user pricing can become extremely expensive, so providing the targeting is on-point, this hook should land.

The biggest criticism I have is that the hook could be more specific with who they’re targeting. I know this is immediately covered in the subhead, but “Stop paying per user for construction PM software” might do a better job of grabbing the right eyes.

It’s a bit more to read, but 8 words isn’t too long. And at a glance it delivers the whole hook.

The problem could also be solved with making the sub-head more prominent. But overall it’s a decent hook, with room for improvement.

Sidenote: I’m really not a fan of using title case in ad headings. I actually posted about this on LinkedIn, and it seems that people share this distaste. It’s worth reading the comments to see what people said, but I think the main themes were readability/scannability and a sense that it feels less human. So I think sentence or even all caps would work better here.

The Angle

This ad has no primary text, so the whole angle is contained in the image copy. And it does a great job.

The biggest concern of moving away from per-user pricing is losing key features and functionality. Or being forced onto per-project pricing. This image copy addresses these in a very simple way.

The ad is clearly targeted at someone who already wants to switch away from per-user pricing, and the ask is to book a demo, which is a lower commitment ask that a free trial or the like. So this ad does a very simple thing not enough ads do: it says it’s piece then moves out of the way.

I actually like that there’s no primary text here. Primary text can be really useful, but in this ad it would have been superfluous, and likely damaging. The choice to keep it contained in the image is a smart one. And the angle itself is strong.

The Ask

The ad headline is BY FAR the weakest part of this ad. It just repeats the image headline “Stop Paying Per User”, same title case, exact same wording. It’s a waste.

This ad is already extremely economical with words and message, but this ads friction at the worst possible point. The hook has grabbed you, the checklist has reassured you, and…repetition?

The reader just wants to know what to do next. So this should just say “Book your free demo”.

Then the description can just stab a bit more at that pain point. Something like “Scaling shouldn’t cost you money” that just reiterates why they want to switch.

The Landing

Apart from the cartoonishly tall form panel, this landing page is fine. It’s the standard demo booking page, with pretty generic copy.

This is alright, as you’re hoping they’re just filling in the form at this point.

There’s an argument to be made that it wouldn’t take much to put together a custom demo page focused around per-user pricing. Something that just addresses the objections and pain point in a few more words. But I’m not sure this would make a huge difference.

The Verdict

I like this ad! And I really like containing the bulk of the copy to the image. I think especially on Meta, this is a smart move and I’m surprised more don’t do it.

With the tweak to the image header, and a better headline, this becomes a very strong ad that takes you through hook > angle > ask at an impressive speed and pinpoint pain point targeting.

The Hook

I’m so confused by this hook. “‘Tis the season to start selling” is fine, I guess. Cliched, but fine.

But then “Launch before Black Friday” throws me off. Maybe it’s because I’m British, but the heading is clearly a Christmas thing, but Black Friday is a Thanksgiving thing, right?

So we’ve got a Christmas-themed hook, followed by ‘Launch before Black Friday’ to create some urgency.

And the design is…just a bit weird. Not sure what the blue and white fuzzy background is. Then just three random products. I would guess the three products are supposed to be gifts? But the background doesn’t exactly scream festive or Christmas.

The Shopify logo fits fine. The ‘Start for free’ feels like it could be much more dominant than almost hiding behind the scarf.

It just feels…lazy. Why not go for a headline that actually plays into the urgency. “Black Friday is coming” or “Gift season starts soon” maybe? The latter probably works best because you can keep the subheading in the image.

I don’t know how to explain this, but it feels like a marketers headline, not a copywriters headline.

The Angle

Oh, it already has “Black Friday is coming” in the primary text. Better late than never, I guess.

Actually, this primary text would work far better as the main image hook:

Head: BLACK FRIDAY IS COMING
Sub: Launch your business before the holidays

The angle itself is pretty clear, but it makes no effort to take you through to the action. The image has a weak hook, then this just retreads the same ground (albeit in a better way).

It has the room to tell more of a story. Talk about how the busiest season for online sellers is coming up, so get set up now ready for gift season.

You could even use some stats about how much more vendors sell during this period, to really double down on the angle. This is clearly targeted at people who already want to open a shop, but either on the fence whether to or not, or on the fence over what platform to use.

This ad doesn’t actually sell Shopify at all. It purely uses the time constraints, which is fine for the hook. But you’ve got the rest of the ad to say why Shopify. So why not use it?

The Ask

What are we even doing? Just repeating the image headline as the ad headline?

I think this is the problem with reviewing the ads of big companies. I don’t want to ever punch down and review the ads of small startups. But the big boys don’t seem to give a fuck. They just whack any old shit up there, knowing they’ll still dominate the market.

It would be so easy to go with something like “Get your store set up before Black Friday” to bring the narrative home.

Then “Start for free” as the description is fine. But again it’s a copy + paste from the image.

The Landing

Oh, I see. They just copied the H1 from the landing page and pasted it into the image and the ad headline.

Because who’s got time to think of something original?

(I’m starting to worry that these teardowns are too negative. I promise I’ll try to find some better ads soon.)

But yeah, this is a decent enough landing page from that ad. It’s consistent in messaging (at least with the headings), and low friction. It’s also a landing page that highlights some key features, without being too hefty.

They could do more to play into the narrative, and explain why it matters that the festive season is coming up. But it’s fine.

The Verdict

I think the angle is a good one for a campaign. Create some urgency, and hopefully get those people on the fence about starting a Shopify site to just commit. There’s just so much more they could do with this angle.

It’s infuriating how little thought or imagination went into this funnel.

The Hook

I’m genuinely not sure what to make of this hook from Notion. In theory, it’s a really strong headline. $12,000 for free??

Maybe I’m too cynical, but it just feels too good to be true. Even for a B2B offer. The headline is so bold with its claim, I just don’t believe it. If I came across this offer in the wild, I’d dismiss it as some bullshit marketing maths, and scroll away.

Maybe that’s just me. I might post to LinkedIn and see if anyone else agrees.

But for now, let’s actually do the maths:

• Cost per seat = months × $20

  • 6 months: 6 × $20 = $120

  • 3 months: 3 × $20 = $60

  • 1 month: 1 × $20 = $20

• Maximum value at 100 seats

  • 6 months: $120 × 100 = $12,000

  • 3 months: $60 × 100 = $6,000

  • 1 month: $20 × 100 = $2,000

• ”up to 3 months” and “$12,000”

  • $12,000 ÷ $60 per seat = 200 seats needed

  • The startup program is for companies with fewer than 100 employees, so 200 seats looks unlikely

OK, so…it is bullshit. Unless I’ve missed something. It seems you can’t actually get $12,000 free with this program. You’d need to get 6 months free, which is only available to companies “affiliated with one of our startup partners”. Which the ad doesn’t state. And you’d still need to have 100 seats, the maximum available on this program.

So the hook is too good to be true. But let’s assume that as a copywriter my bullshit detector is unusually high. For plenty of B2B buyers, this is probably a strong hook that will, in fact make them click.

The Angle

This ad reads like someone trying to satirise how AI writes copy. The emoji, the arrows, the title-case. It would be pretty good satire if it wasn’t an actual ad Notion ran.

The angle itself is an odd one. “Strategic investment” is a weird sell for a big-ass free trial. What are they investing? It’s not money, we’ve covered that. So I guess they’re trying to say that the effort of implementing Notion Business at zero cost is a strategic investment?

This is a BOFU ad, clearly. It’s trying to say “You already know who we are, here’s a low-risk way to get started”. But the word ‘investment’ makes me stop to work out what I’m investing. It’s a word that adds a weird amount of friction to an ad that it clearly trying to rush you to the finish line.

They don’t touch on any benefits, they don’t tell you what features beyond “enterprise grade AI suite”. It’s just GO GO GO.

It’s almost like they don’t expect you to read the primary text at all.

The Ask

“Free Trial with AI Access” is fine inside the image. It just clarifies the framing of the $12,000.

But then it goes nuts. The headline is so long it gets appended. Same with the description.

Seemingly the description also goes into benefits, but it’s so long you can’t read what they are. Maybe this was supposed to be the primary text and the primary text was supposed to be the description? That’s the only thing I can think of.

Going back to the headline, I don’t know why they’re trying to cram so much in there. “Stop waiting. Start transforming” is AI copy if I’ve ever read it. I’d remove that and just keep the headline about the offer. Feels odd tryijng to shoehorn in a generic tagline here.

Overall, a bizarre and messy CTA.

The Landing

Before I get on to the landing page itself, this is the link for it:

https://app.notion.com/signup?utm_source=linkedin&utm_medium=cpc&utm_campaign=startups

Notice that it specifies linkedin as the UTM source, even though this is a Meta ad.

Then this is the actual landing page. Just a sign up modal. Which seems wild to me.

Why aren’t they landing on a page clarifying the startup program, explaining the maths, giving them ANY details about what they’re signing up for?

But no. Just the regular sign up modal. The least reassuring landing page when you want someone to commit to three months for their (up to) 100 employees.

The Verdict

The only conclusion I can draw from this ad is that Notion is so big, they don’t care how well their ads perform. Or they’re so big, it doesn’t matter what their ads say.

They lie, they don’t even try to sell the product, half of their CTA copy isn’t even shown to the reader.

It’s a hot mess!

The Hook

Sometimes simplicity is the best approach. And “Make room for your best work” just twangs a nerve in the best way. We all believe we’d do better work if we didn’t have other shit to do.

Then “by automating your busywork” just finishes the hook beautifully by reinforcing this belief in our heads. If we didn’t have to do the stuff we don’t want to do (busywork), we can focus on the stuff that we do. The important stuff. Our best work.

This is clearly a BOFU ad. They have the Zapier logo bottom right, which most people probably recognise by now. At least most people this ad is aimed at. And the image does a good job of including an image without cluttering or overcomplicating.

The only thing that throws me slightly is the facebook logo. I know you can do automations with facebook, but whose ‘busywork’ is Facebook? But that’s tiny, and probably doesn’t add any friction.

The Angle

The primary text of this ad is fine. It’s functional. “See how Zapier” could imply it’s a demo rather than a sign-up CTA coming up. And “for what matters most” feels like a waste. They could have included some specifics here to double down on what could be automated.

Then “Start automating your work for free—no code required” is fine, too. With who their target audience probably is, the emdash could be a misstep (it’s seen as an AI hallmark these days). So I would replace it with a period and just include “ No code required” as a standalone sentence at the end. But I’m nitpicking here.

As I said, this is a BOFU ad, and they’re more trying to grab people who are already likely to want to give Zapier a chance. So this ad feels a bit more like “Hey, remember that thing you checked out the other month. Maybe now’s the time to give it a go!”

It could be telling a more relatable story or including more specifics. But it’s fine.

The Ask

The “Try for free” in the image does a good job in making it clear what the ask is. Try Zapier for free, with no obligation.

Then “Get started quickly with workflow templates” is another bit of inoffensive, reassuring copy. Mentioning templates is smart. In fact, templates could have been mentioned in the primary text for a more consistent and reassuring narrative.

But by and large, this works. No description, just the ‘Sign up’ button. They know they’re not doing the hard sell here. They’re just popping up to remind you they exist and that it’s free to get started.

The Landing

My biggest problem with this ad is where you land when you click on it.

The ad was about automating boring tasks, effectively. But then it drops you on their homepage, which is all about “automation in the agentic era” and “start building in your favourite AI tool”.

From that ad, I should be landing on a page focused on simpler automations. Ideally, if the targeting is precise enough, it would even drop me on one of their use case pages. if I’m in marketing drop me here, if I’m a project manager, drop me here, etc.

Or if that’s not possible, maybe just drop me on the apps page so they can quickly see all the different places Zapier can help.

Their core positioning and messaging is clearly focused on agentic AI (surprise surprise), but it’s just a mismatch between the messaging in the ad and the homepage copy. And it creates unnecessary friction.

The Verdict

The ad itself is good. The hook is strong, the story is a little generic (potentially on purpose to not need as tight targeting), and the CTA is good.

It’s the landing page that feels disconnected. It feels clear that the homepage is written by a completely different team to whoever wrote the ad.

The Hook

I’m a copywriter, so I’m underqualified to talk about design. But I’m left conflicted by this ad’s design. I’ll come on to that shortly.

On the copy, I really like this for a hook. “Record, edit, & publish your podcast” is enough to maybe not grab the attention of an aspiring podcaster, but at least catch their eye.

The bit that really hooks it is “FREE”. It’s not trying to be overly clever or witty. It just tells the reader, at a glance, that they can start a podcast for free. Very little to critique here on the copy side. It’s clear, blunt, and will grab the attention of their target demo here.

The design is my biggest issue, though. Zencastr has been around for AGES now. Over a decade at least. And assuming their target is BOFU — where the person knows they want to start a podcast, but maybe haven’t actually taken the step to pick a stack and start recording — there’s a strong chance the reader has already googled “How to start a podcast” or something similar.

So they might have already seen Zencastr, and be at least marginally aware of their brand name and branding.

So why wouldn’t you use your brand colours, and include the word ‘Zencastr’ somewhere in the image? That could make them think “Not only does this sound appealing, but I’ve also heard of this product”.

Instead they went with black font on a grey background. Why?? It’s like whoever made this design actively didn’t want anyone to read it. Which I think is a shame.

The Angle

As I said, this is clearly a BOFU angle. They’re trying to catch someone just at the point where they have an idea, they’re pretty sure, and now the message is “You can start today, risk free”.

Which the hook nails.

And the primary text starts off strong. “Record high quality audio and video” reassures the reader that free doesn’t mean poor quality. Great.

And the last line “Publish everything, everywhere. All for free.” does a good job of giving another reassurance that you can publish with Zencastr, then reminding you again that it’s free. Not subtle, but this is advertising.

But the middle sentence “Edit your podcast just by chatting” breaks the flow. The hook grabbed me, the first sentence reassured me, then this sentence introduces friction.

What do you mean I can edit by chatting? Is that something I want? Can I edit my podcast with an editor like I expected? Or do I have to chat to Zencastr?

It’s an alien concept, dropped in as if I’m supposed to know what it means. Which actually tells me as a reader that it might not be for me.

For the purpose of this ad, they should have just included “Built-in editing tools” or something. Just to remind them again that this is an all-in-one platform. If you’ve got a new fangled editing AI chatbot thing, give it it’s own campaign. For this, keep it simple.

This is the kind of friction that gives someone enough pause to scroll past.

The Ask

The headline “Pro podcasting, now in your pocket” line is a little bit odd. “In your pocket” is a cliche in ads, but normally reserved for mobile apps. Nothing so far has mentioned it’s a mobile app.

Sorry to skip ahead, but I checked the landing page, and apparently “Pro podcasting, now in your pocket” if their new slogan because yes, they have a mobile app and they’re clearly pushing this as their new positioning.

Which would be fine, if anything in the rest of the ad mentioned this. It’s not in the hook, the image, the primary copy. Based on this headline and their landing page (which is just their homepage), it seems this campaign is supposed to be promoting this new mobile positioning. But it’s first mentioned in the headline. Which is odd.

Then it continues to get weirder. “Vibes required”…huh? Why are we talking about vibes now? “Production optional”?? What does that mean? This is an ad about podcast production. How is it required?

“A Vibecast is a conversation” — am I having a stroke? What the fuck is a ‘vibecast’? Is that a new term I haven’t heard of. I’m nearly 40, but I wouldn’t say I’m over the hill yet. I even googled it, which didn’t help:

If I scroll down to the bottom of Zencastr’s website, I find this copy: “Your phone is your podcast studio.Start vibecasting.”. So I guess this is a term they’re using to mean a podcast you do without needing all the equipment and knowhow. A play on ‘Vibecoding’ perhaps?

But then under it, it says “Get Zencastr for Desktop to access a full professional creator tool stack.” so fuck knows what’s going on.

Regardless of what vibecasting is or isn’t, it’s a bizarre inclusion in this CTA. And it feels like the first half of the app was written by a different person than the person who wrote the headline and description.

These two bits of copy just needed to reiterate that they can start podcasting today at zero risk. It’s free, it’s easy, and there’s no reason not to click the button and get started.

The Landing

Firstly: why wasn’t the ad this blue gradient instead of the grey gradient?

But more importantly, if you clicked this ad after just reading the image and primary copy, you’d be a bit confused. And that’s somehow despite the fact the ad is a copy and paste of the landing page.

Your first question is “This is a mobile app?”

Nothing in the image or primary text set that up. If their big hook is now “Pro podcasting, now in your pocket” (lazy copy, but largely fine), why isn’t it the heading copy in the image?

Why isn’t there a picture of someone recording a podcast on their phone. Or chatting with their chat-based editor?

It’s odd to hook in with “Record, edit & publish your podcast. FREE” to then switch it up to “DID YOU KNOW IT’S A MOBILE APP NOW???”

The Verdict

Clearly, this as wasn’t actually written as an ad. Maybe it was last thing on a friday or something. So they just copy and pasted from the homepage, then threw together an image on Canva just as they were standing up to put their coat on.

So instead of reiterating what I’ve said here, I’ll say this: web copy and ad copy are different things. They do different jobs. Your web copy has an advantage that they’re already on your website. If someone is on the Zencastr website, it’s because they want to start a podcast, and are trying to work out why not to use Riverside.

An ad, on the other hand, doesn’t have that advantage. It needs to grab you, tell you a story, and get you to click a button. All in a couple seconds. So you can’t add so much friction like they’ve done here.

Disclaimer: I was just reminded that I invested $630 in Zencastr a few years ago. Obviously this didn’t bias my critique, but wanted to mention for full transparency. Ironically, I prefer and use Riverside.

The Hook

For some reason, ClickUp thinks a rather dull looking mind map screenshot will work as a hook for this ad. Which assumes there are people out there who thinks mindmaps are particularly eye-catching.

But the problem with a mind maps is that they are useful, but visually a mess. Once they become useful, they’re as hard to read as the London Underground map.

ClickUp know this, which is why they’ve shown and extremely basic three-pronged mind map. Which isn’t useful to anyone.

Potentially this as is for a very specific person: A ClickUp user who has been clamouring for mind maps in ClickUp for a very long time. In which case this only proves to let them know. But for anyone else, there’s no hook.

If we ignore the image and focus on the first line of the primary text, we get this:

"Even complex projects can look simple with Mind Maps!”

This is a better hook. Which is a shame, as no-one is likely to read this line. Making complex projects look simple is a decent benefit. They could have leant into this more with an image header. Something like “Complex projects, simplified” to better introduce the new feature.

The Angle

The angle of the ad is quite clear. It’s a BOFU ad that assumes you know what ClickUp is, and it letting you know two things:

1. They’ve added mind maps

2. They’re routinely adding new features

Based on the copy, they also assume the reader is aware of mind maps, but want to make it clear how they would work in a project management setting. Which isn’t a bad idea. “Get the perspective you need” feels quite flat, but “drawing connections between tasks, mapping out workflows, organizing messy layouts” are all things that sound useful.

It’s a simple angle, but I think it would work if it wasn’t let down by the absence of a hook. And I’m saying that as someone who uses ClickUp, and who’s used MindMaps before. So I’m probably their target demo here.

The Ask

There’s a reason this section is called ‘The Ask’ and not ‘The Asks’. A PPC ad needs to essentially have a simple flow:

1. Hook

2. Story

3. Offer

And you only need one of each. Two hooks fight with each other. Two stories will fight with each other.

And in this case, two offers/asks fight with each other.

What do ClickUp want the reader to do next?

“Try ClickUp for free today!” tells me they want me to sign up for a free account. But then we have “Learn more” which takes us to a page about mind maps. They should have ditched the line in the primary text, and kept the button.

I’m also not sure about “Visualize your next great idea with ClickUp”. As I said, the ‘Learn more’ button takes you to a page about mind maps. So this headline should match. Maybe “Visualize your next great idea with mind maps”. But even then, why are we talking about ideas when the rest of the ad has been about projects?

“Visualize your project with mind maps” is probably the easiest fix here. It sets up the landing page, while keeping with the key narrative.

The Landing

When you click ‘Learn more’, you get taken to this page. And to be clear, the above isn’t part of that page. It’s the entire page.

It doesn’t go into more detail about how mind maps work, it doesn’t give you more use cases, and it doesn’t really say anything beyond what the ad said.

The one thing it does do is show a more fleshed out mind map. Which is actually a far more appealing image. It’s helped by being light rather than dark and dreary, but more importantly it paints a clearer picture of how a mind map can actually help. Going that one level deeper to show how tasks fit into groups is just a more engaging demonstration.

But beyond that, this landing page doesn’t really do anything the ad doesn’t already do. Which, if anything, is just adding more friction. They might as well have just taken them to the signup page, rather than waste this click.

The better landing would have been to make this a proper feature landing page. Act like they’re mind map salespeople. Explain why they’re useful, what people use them for, how you can expand or minimise sections, etc.

The only person who gets to this page and clicks ‘Get started free’ is a person who has been putting off getting ClickUp solely because they lack mind maps. But I’ve just looked it up and this isn’t even a new feature. They’ve had mind maps since 2020.

Which means the only person who gets to this page and clicks ‘Get started free’ is a person who has been putting off getting ClickUp solely because they didn’t realise it already had them.

Which feels like an oddly specific person to aim for.

The Verdict

I’m annoyed I chose this as the first case to publish online. It feels almost arrogant to not bother with a hook, and then abandon the pitch once they’ve clicked the ad.

There’s a good funnel in here somewhere. One that grabs attention, clearly communicates the benefits of mind maps, and creates a compelling case for starting a free trial.

But the funnel we got is just full of gaps.