The Complete List of Questions Your Ads Can Help You Answer

Your ads can answer almost any growth question you have — if you design them to.

Below is the complete list of questions we’ve seen brands ask, organized by category. Use this as a diagnostic. Find the questions you can’t answer with confidence. Those are the ones holding you back.

Part 1: Audience Questions (i.e. “Who Is Actually Buying?”)

These questions help you understand who your real customer is, not who you think they are or who you wish they were.

1. Are my best customers buying for themselves or as gifts?

2. Do beginners or experts convert better for my product?

3. Are men or women making the purchase decision?

4. Which age group has the highest LTV, not just the most purchases?

5. Are my repeat buyers the same profile as my first-time buyers?

6. Are my customers new to this category or switching from a competitor?

7. Do impulse buyers or researchers convert better?

8. Which customer segment has the lowest CAC?

9. Which customer segment has the highest AOV?

10. Are my customers buying for a specific occasion or ongoing use?

Why these matter: Most brands target who they think their customer is. But often their best customers — highest LTV, lowest CAC, most likely to refer — are someone they weren’t even thinking about.

Part 2: Motivation Questions (i.e. “Why Do They Buy?”)

These questions uncover the real reasons behind the purchase, the emotional and practical drivers that make someone click “buy now.”

1. What problem do my customers think I’m solving?

2. What outcome are they actually buying?

3. Are they motivated by saving time or saving money?

4. Are they buying to gain something or avoid something?

5. Is this a want purchase or a need purchase?

6. What trigger makes them buy now instead of later?

7. Are they buying for status, convenience, quality, or price?

8. What’s the real reason they choose me over alternatives?

9. What would they do if my product didn’t exist?

10. What moment in their life leads them to my product?

Why these matter: Features don’t sell. Outcomes sell. If you don’t know what outcome your customer is buying, you’re guessing at your entire message.

Part 3: Message Questions (i.e. “What should I say?”)

These questions help you find the words that convert the right angle, the right promise, the right way to frame your product.

1. Should I lead with the problem or the solution?

2. Does pain or aspiration convert better for my audience?

3. Should I emphasize practical benefits or emotional benefits?

4. Which single benefit should lead every ad?

5. Does my audience respond to logic or emotion?

6. What language do my customers actually use to describe their need?

7. Does storytelling outperform direct response for my product?

8. Should I focus on what makes me different or what makes me better?

9. Does specificity or simplicity convert better in my headlines?

10. What objection should I address first?

Why these matter: The same product with two different messages can have wildly different results. The goal isn’t to say more, it’s to find the one thing that makes people act.

Part 4: Format Questions (i.e. “How Should I Show It?”)

These questions help you understand which creative formats work best for your audience and product.

1. Does UGC outperform polished brand content?

2. Do static images or video drive lower CAC?

3. Does founder-led content convert better than influencer content?

4. What video length holds attention and converts?

5. Do product demos or lifestyle content perform better?

6. Does animation or live action resonate more?

7. Do testimonials work better as text, audio, or video?

8. Does square, vertical, or horizontal format matter for my audience?

9. Do carousels or single images drive more engagement?

10. Does lo-fi or hi-fi production convert better?

Why these matter: Format affects performance more than most brands realize. The best message in the wrong format will lose to a decent message in the right format.

Part 5: Offer Questions (i.e. “How Should I Sell It?”)

These questions help you optimize your pricing, promotions, and purchase mechanics.

1. Does urgency help or hurt my conversion rate?

2. Do bundles increase AOV enough to justify the complexity?

3. Which price framing makes my product feel like a no-brainer?

4. Does free shipping or a percentage discount drive more purchases?

5. Does a money-back guarantee increase or decrease trust?

6. Does offering payment plans increase conversion?

7. Does a higher price with more value outperform a lower price?

Why these matter: Your offer is often the easiest lever to pull, but only if you know which direction to pull it.

Part 6: Positioning Questions (i.e. “How Do They See Me?”)

These questions help you understand whether your market positioning matches your customer’s perception.

1. Am I positioned as premium, value, or stuck in the middle?

2. Do customers see me the way I want to be seen?

3. What do people think I sell vs what I actually sell?

4. Who do my customers compare me to?

5. What category do they put me in?

6. Am I seen as the leader, the challenger, or the alternative?

7. Does my brand attract or repel certain customer types?

Why these matter: Positioning isn’t what you say. It’s what they believe. If there’s a gap between the two, your marketing will always feel like pushing uphill.

How to use this list

Step 1: Go through each category. Mark the questions you can answer with confidence today using real data, not assumptions.

Step 2: Mark the questions you’ve been guessing at. These are your blind spots.

Step 3: Prioritize. Which unanswered question, if you knew the answer, would change the most about how you run your business?

Step 4: Design an experiment to answer it. Not a random test. A controlled experiment with one variable isolated.

Step 5: Apply the insight everywhere. The answer to “who buys more gifters or self-purchasers?” doesn’t just change your ads. It changes your landing pages, your email flows, your product pages, your entire positioning.

The brands that win are the ones with answers.

Most brands are stuck because they’re asking the wrong questions … or not asking questions at all.

They’re testing creative randomly. They’re following best practices that worked for someone else. They’re making decisions based on gut feel and hoping for the best.

But the brands that break through are the ones that turn their ad spend into a learning engine. They treat every campaign as an experiment. They answer questions systematically. They build a compounding understanding of their customer that their competitors can’t copy.