Anyone else seeing a massive drop in CTR on polished/automated creatives lately?

Not a rant, just looking for a sanity check on data.

Over the last few months, every time my agency tests those hyper-optimized, perfectly generated assets, the engagement tanks. It’s like audiences have developed a literal blind spot for anything that looks "too perfect" or machine-generated.

On the flip side, shaky iPhone videos with zero editing are outperforming our high-budget stuff by like 3x.

Are you guys adjusting your content strategies to be intentionally "uglier" just to prove a human made it? How do you even pitch that to a client?

Comments

NotCryptoKing•4 months ago•2

Sounds like you’re talking about AI slop. “Perfectly generated assets” people don’t like slop and want a real person and real images

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esakkiraja-m•4 months ago•1

Yeah, seeing the same. It’s not about quality — it’s about perception. Anything that looks too polished feels like an ad, so people skip it.

Raw content works because it feels real and native. I don’t call it “ugly” — it’s just human-first content optimized for attention.

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